Judo Jeff Allen has returned home to Huntsville with a silver medal from the one of the largest national judo competitions, the Elite 8 Judo National Championships, held Jan. 12 in Montreal.
To be invited to compete in this tournament, Allen had to accumulate enough points at other competitions to be counted among the top eight fighters in Canada. His points placed him third overall.
This is the fifth year Allen has received an invitation to fight amongst the best of the best from across the country. Last year he won the bronze medal.
Allen normally fights in multiple divisions but Elite 8 includes just one, the Senior division, and is a single elimination rather than double elimination tournament, “so you need to win,” said Allen.
Leading up to this championship tournament, Allen was ranked third best in Canada. With this silver medal he has moved up to second. “This is the highest I’ve been ranked in this division,” he said.
There are no easy fights at the Elite 8 competition, said Allen. “I am one of the top seeds, so I got a ‘bye’ through the first round, second round I fought Andrew Blaney where I won by ‘ippon’ in the semi-finals. I then moved onto the gold-medal fight, where I fought Marc Duchesne. I had a great day of competition making it to the gold-medal round where I faced off against the National champion.” Allen fought well and is happy with bringing home a silver medal to Ontario and Muskoka.
“I trained more explosive power and weight training trying to be able to go out and finish my fights as fast as possible and preserve my energy. I went out prepared for this with a gold in mind but going out and only losing one fight and taking a silver I’m very happy with my performance,” said Allen.
Judo Jeff Allen is now ranked in first place in the Masters division in Canada, first place in Canada in the Newaza division, and second place in the Senior division.
“I am very happy with where I am in my career and hope this is the year where I go to the World Masters…and capture a gold medal for Canada,” Allen said.
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Well done Jeff,
Good luck at your upcoming competitions.
Congratulations on winning the silver medal. The best of luck in your future matches.