Beauchemin-Pinard bows out
Before her last contest against Clarisse Agbegnenou, Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard told the Frenchwoman it was the final time they would meet. Agbegnenou had beaten her six times in eight attempts, so the Canadian knew exactly who she was saying goodbye to. On Thursday Judo Canada confirmed what the 32-year-old from Quebec had already decided back in April: the U63kg world silver medallist has retired.
The timing was hers. She had thought about stopping since the Paris Olympics, where she finished seventh after fighting with a broken hand, and chose instead to give herself one more season and one more World Championships. That season brought a silver medal at the Grand Slam in Tashkent in February, lost in the final to Narumi Tanioka, and then a complete tear of the anterior cruciate ligament, a year after a partial tear of the medial collateral ligament. No single defeat pushed her out. The balance between judo and the rest of her life had shifted, and the injuries made the sum easy.
Fifteen years at U63kg, from junior silver to world number one
Her career has a shape that few Canadians can match. Junior world silver in 2013 and bronze in 2014 led to a fifth place at the senior Worlds in 2015 and a Pan American Games silver in Toronto the same year. Rio 2016 was her Olympic debut, Tokyo 2021 her Olympic bronze, with teammate Antoine Valois-Fortier at her side in the stands after his own elimination and later in her corner as coach. She reached two World Championship finals, in 2022 and 2025, and both ended in silver. From 2022 to 2025 she held the world number one ranking, collected twelve Grand Slam medals including six titles, with Tbilisi won three times, and stood on nine Pan American Championship podiums in eleven appearances.
The head to head records tell the same story of a fighter who owned her continent and kept knocking on the door of the very top. Eight wins in ten against Anriquelis Barrios of Venezuela, five in nine against Marti Malloy, four apiece with Cuba’s Maylin del Toro Carvajal, and the two wins against Agbegnenou that most of the division never managed at all.
A twinkle in her father’s eye, and a tax office waiting
The human thread runs through her father Carlos, who pushed the family into sport and suffered a severe stroke in 2019 that took his speech. She has said that showing him her medals brought a twinkle in his eye, and that this became their way of talking. Her next chapter is already under way. Since 2025 she has worked part-time as a tax specialist and is studying for a master’s degree to become a chartered professional accountant. A full-time job in judo is not the plan, although she hopes to stay close to Judo Canada and to the promotion of women’s sport.
With Christa Deguchi gone in March and Beauchemin-Pinard now, Canada has lost its two Paris Olympians at U57kg and U63kg within eight months. The next generation inherits a standard that was set over fifteen years, an Olympic bronze and a rival in France who finally heard the words every champion dreads: that was the last time.
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