{"id":8799,"date":"2025-06-09T16:13:34","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T19:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=8799"},"modified":"2025-06-09T16:14:57","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T19:14:57","slug":"queens-countys-abigail-smith-to-fight-for-canada-at-world-judo-championships-in-bulgaria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2025\/06\/09\/queens-countys-abigail-smith-to-fight-for-canada-at-world-judo-championships-in-bulgaria\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens County&#8217;s Abigail Smith to fight for Canada at world judo championships in Bulgaria"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_7333\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7333\" class=\"size-large wp-image-7333\" src=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/abigailsmithqueensplace-1-1024x768.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/abigailsmithqueensplace-1-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/abigailsmithqueensplace-1-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/abigailsmithqueensplace-1-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/abigailsmithqueensplace-1-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-7333\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abigail Smith will be going to the World Judo Cadets Championships in Bulgaria in August. (Rick Conrad)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Abigail Smith is booking another international flight to wear the maple leaf.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The 17-year-old judo athlete from Queens County will be representing Canada at the World Judo Cadets Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria, Aug. 27 to 30.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are three divisions in judo: cadet for athletes under 18, junior for those under 21, and senior.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI\u2019m so excited,&#8221; she told QCCR.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8220;It&#8217;s been my dream for so long. Years now, I\u2019ve been wantitng to go to a world event, and cadet worlds, it\u2019s what I&#8217;ve been working for. I moved to the city to be able to train for this goal, so to know that all my hard work paid off and I&#8217;m actually getting to go, it\u2019s such a surreal feeling.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Smith decided five months ago to move to Halifax and stay with a family there so she can train full time at Nova United Martial Arts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWhen I was living in Liverpool, I was only able to train three days a week on the mats because it\u2019s such a long drive &#8212; two hours there, two hours back. I was getting home at 11, and not getting to bed until 12. This is my last year to make the cadet worlds, this is the last year I could qualify, so I said I really wanted to go for it and I talked to my coaches and my parents and everyone that&#8217;s been helping me, and they said, &#8216;Yep, let\u2019s go for it&#8217;.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>RELATED:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/tag\/abigail-smith\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more about Abigail Smith&#8217;s journey here<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Smith began judo lessons when she was four years old. She\u2019s now ranked in the Top 10 in Canada.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">She\u2019s been racking up the frequent flyer points in the past few months, joining Team Canada for the European Judo Tour in March.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And she grabbed two bronze medals, in her usual U18 or cadet division and the U21 division, at the national judo championships in Calgary in May.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like the fierce competitor she is, though, she was disappointed because she had her sights set on a gold in the U18 division.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI was very upset with the results actually. To get selected for worlds, you have to win nationals. I didn\u2019t win, but Judo Canada has the option to select another (athlete). They selected me to go also.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI went there to win. My first fight was a good fight. And I went into my second fight, it went into golden score which is overtime and I was dominating the whole fight controlling it and a few seconds into overtime I made a mistake, I got caught and I lost that fight. Then I was very upset. Then my coach talked to me, my dad talked to me and they said you can still podium, so I fought back up to the repechage and I won the bronze medal after a few more fights.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">She\u2019ll have a big cheering section in Bulgaria for the worlds. Her coaches Jason Scott and Jamie Slaunwhite plan to be there, along with her parents.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIt\u2019s special, it means a lot to me, they\u2019re my biggest supporters, my mom and dad, for them to come it\u2019s going to be great for them to see me fight.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Smith says she&#8217;s excited to show, again, what she can do on the world stage.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI think i just want to go out there and fight and show my judo and leave everything on the mat. I don\u2019t want to have any regrets after this. I just want to go out there and fight and give it my all.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Email: <a href=\"mailto:rickconradqccr@gmail.com\">rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Listen to the audio version of this story below<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-8799-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/freq_abigailsmithworldsjun925.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/freq_abigailsmithworldsjun925.mp3\">https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/freq_abigailsmithworldsjun925.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Abigail Smith is booking another international flight to wear the maple leaf. The 17-year-old judo athlete from Queens County will be representing Canada at the World Judo Cadets Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria, Aug. 27 to 30. There are three divisions in judo: cadet for athletes under 18, junior for those under 21, and senior. \u201cI\u2019m [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[1614,2935,48,3191,3193,3194,1619,1615,2202,39,49,3192,1626,1624,3190],"class_list":["post-8799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-abigail-smith","tag-athletes","tag-brooklyn","tag-bulgaria","tag-european-judo-tour","tag-jamie-slaunwhite","tag-jason-scott","tag-judo","tag-judo-canada","tag-liverpool","tag-queens-county","tag-sofia","tag-sports","tag-team-canada","tag-world-judo-cadets-championships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8799"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8802,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8799\/revisions\/8802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}