Rivers youth heading to judo nationals

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Published on Wednesday, May 4, 2016

By Laurie Kroeker

Melody Kroeker competed in two categories at a judo tournament in Portage la Prairie on April 16. Seven members of the Brandon club, including two of her younger siblings, competed as well. Sister Marita and brother Jonathan each earned participation medals in their categories. There were 150 judoka registered.

Melody's first match was in U18F-57 against two competitors; she earned a trophy for gold. The second fight was against a national level competitor in a combined category, U21-63kg. Melody fought well in both matches against her, making her opponent, who is taller and 10 kilograms heavier than she, work very hard for the gold.

Melody has been selected to attend the National Judo Championships which will be held in Calgary, Alta. May 13-16. She is registered to fight in U18F-52. She is focused on training under the guidance of Mike Flamand of Brandon and with the provincial team at University of Manitoba. She is very excited for the opportunity to compete at such a high level. Her goal is to bring home the gold.

Past reports in this paper have noted her excellence in this sport with competition at Western Canada Summer Games last August (Team Manitoba), several tournament wins in October and November and most recently, in February when more medals were reported. The 16-year-old competed with Team Manitoba in Regina (January) and Edmonton (March) and travels from her Harding district farm to our capital city once a month to train with them. On April 2 at provincial competition in Virden she won silver in U18-57kg.