Head of the U.S. delegation Jhonny Prado was supported by German Velazco and Carrie Chandler, the latter being 2005 senior PanAm champion, knowing exactly how the youngsters would be feeling on their big day.
The team performed excellently placing second on the medal tally with 5 gold medals, behind the home team, topping the table with 8 golds. 13 countries finished with top 5 placings but it was clear that the LA2028 preparations are well under way. The American juniors have been travelling all over the world in recent months in search of improvement, experience and results and it is definitely paying off.
Stand out results came from the five American 5 gold medallists. Emily Jaspe won -63 kg gold with a beautiful uchi-mata after a 5 minute golden score battle with Ingrid Choco of Colombia. Christopher Velazco, son of team coach German Velazco, won his first junior Pan Am medal, a gold, and Dominic Rodriguez, Team USA’s youngest ever senior Pan Am champion when he won gold in 2022 at only 17 years old also took his respective top spot. This gold completed his set as he now has cadet, junior and senior continental titles.
Team USA’s youngest gold medallist of the day was 16 year old Daniel Liubimovski who won the -100 kg category despite only moving up very recently. It was Oleksandr Nyzhnyk who completed the golden tally, winning the category below Daniel’s, becoming -90 kg PanAmerican junior champion.
Carrie Chandler, clearly more than satisfied by the performances is the judoka, said, “I’m extremely proud of our juniors and cadets. This is the strongest group of young athletes coming up that USA Judo has ever had. There has been substantial investment in the junior programme and it has helped tremendously as we have been able to prepare the athletes by attending lots of competitions and training camps with the best athletes, all over the world.
The IJF World Judo Tour is bigger than it ever has been before and it really motivates the upcoming athletes to be the stars of tomorrow.
The coaches really put a lot of emphasis on team unity and all the athletes were so supportive, helping push and prepare one another throughout. They could be heard all around the arena cheering each other on. The future is bright for USA Judo and it’s exciting to watch it unfold in real time.”
Twenty-eight nations are taking part in the senior edition over the weekend and Team USA will undoubtedly feature. Follow all the results and statistics on JudoTV.