KAYLA HARRISON : JUDOKA WORLD CHAMPION

Kayla Harrison went undefeated in five matches at the competition to become one of just four U.S. players ever to win a World Championships and the first female to win gold since Anne-Marie Burns in 1964.

 Kayla Harrison was born July 2, 1990 & is a judoka from the USA. She won the Junior World in 2008 & was runner-up in 2009. In 2010, she won the World Judo Championship & in 2012, she was the gold medalist at the London Olympics in the women's 78 kg division. 

Born in Middletown, Ohio. Harrison took up judo at the age of six, having been introduced to the sport by her mother, who was a black belt. She began training under coach Daniel Doyle & won two national championships by the age of 15. However, during that period Doyle was abusing Harrison, who reported it to another judoka, who in turn told Harrison's mother. She subsequently reported this to the police. Doyle was convicted & sentenced to a ten-year prison term. A month after the abuse was revealed, she moved away from her home in Boston to train with Jimmy Pedro & his father.

She changed weight classes in 2008, from the 63 kg division to the 78 kg division. However, she couldn't compete in the 2008 Summer Olympics as the United States had not qualified in that division. She won the Junior World Championship that year & the following year placed second, becoming the first American to compete in two Junior World Championships finals. She won the gold medal in the 78 kg category at the World Judo Championships in 2010, the first American to do so since 1999, when her coach, Jimmy Pedro, did so in Birmingham, England. At the 2011 World Judo Championship in Paris, she placed third taking the bronze medal. Harrison had lost to the eventual winner, Audrey Tcheumeo, in her semi-final.

Prior to the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, she was injured during training, having torn a medial collateral ligament. On August 2, 2012, she won the Olympic title in the 78 kg category, defeating   Gemma Gibbons by two yukos to become the first American to win an Olympic gold medal in judo.

 

 

PATRIZIA KUMMER : CHAMPION SNOWBOARDER

Patrizia Kummer truly is what you can call the rising star of the FIS Alpine Snowboard World Cup tour of the past years.

It all began with her 2009 World Championships Bronze medal in the parallel giant slalom, the discipline which always had been the second best right behind of her favorite parallel slalom.

It seemed that those special honours cut her Gordon knot of 52 more or less disappointing World Cup races being also overshadowed by her more successful team mate, Fraenzi Maegert-Kohli.

However, it still took the Mühlebach resident, who started to snowboard at the age of eleven & to compete just one year later, some more 18 months to bring everything together, her speed, her technique & her ability to focus, & tie on to the Sungwoo World Champs on the World Cup circuit.

In Limone Piemonte, Italy, the member of the national team squad clinched her career's first podium as well as World Cup victory.

The next winter, she finally got started with some real business. Kummer claimed five victories in the 2011/2012 season & also added a second rank finish at the season's finals to her belt thus also celebrating her career's first Crystal Globes clinching the Parallel Overall World Cup title.

The 2013 winter brought two more Crystal Globes (PSL & PAR Overall) due to another consistent season with six top 5 finishes in seven races including a full set of medals. The Swiss powerhouse also, underlined her strength at the 2013 World Championships in Stoneham, Canada, with Silver in the PSL event.

She underwent surgery on her left knee in 2007. She had a knee operation on the meniscus in her right knee in April 2008, and was on crutches for six weeks. She had part of the meniscus removed from her knee in March 2012 following a training injury several months earlier. She took a six-week break from competition. She won the final World Cup event of the 2013/14 season in Sudelfeld, Germany, despite competing with an ankle injury.

Patrizia, 26, secured gold after Japan's Tomoka Takeuchi fell over halfway through the second run of the final. Takeuchi, whose opponents had fallen over in the quarter & semi-finals, finished 7.32 seconds behind to take silver in her fourth Games.