Judoka Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard returned to international competition at the senior world championships in Azerbaijan despite a torn left anterior cruciate ligament, raising questions about her athletic future.
Competing in Baku with a Torn Ligament
The 32-year-old athlete from Saint-Hubert sustained the knee injury in early May at the Grand Slam in Astana. Rather than undergoing immediate surgery that would have required a lengthy recovery and a return to the grueling Olympic qualification cycle, Beauchemin-Pinard opted to forgo the operation to prepare for her 11th senior world championships.
The tournament ran from October 4 to October 11 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Working alongside her coach, Antoine Valois-Fortier, the judoka structured her rehabilitation into five monthly phases without any regression, allowing her to test her readiness during training sessions in Montreal.
When I had my injury, I absolutely didn’t want to finish [my career] on that,
Beauchemin-Pinard said. That’s one of the reasons why I decided to continue without surgery because if I did it, I told myself I wasn’t sure I was going to come back.
Three Bouts at the World Championships
After five months away from the international tatami, Beauchemin-Pinard posted a two-win, one-loss record in her weight category. To secure her opening victory against young Bulgarian competitor Yoana Manova, the Canadian needed more than three minutes of overtime.
Mentally, I was really happy to have gotten through that first fight after five months without competition,
she noted. Wearing a taped left knee, she experienced minor discomfort on one or two occasions, though not enough to alter her execution during her three matches.
In her second match, she faced long-time rival Rafaela Silva of Brazil, the 2016 Olympic champion in the under-57 kg division—a weight class Beauchemin-Pinard also contested at her first Olympic Games. Meeting on the international stage for the ninth time, the Quebec judoka earned a victory to move her head-to-head record against Silva to five wins and four losses.
Her run ended in the third round against France’s Clarisse Agbegnenou, a six-time world champion and triple Olympic medalist. Beauchemin-Pinard acknowledged being too aggressive in the exchange against the French veteran.
After everything she went through this summer, to come back and, without making a sound, beat the Brazilian who is in the top four in the world, that’s no small feat,
Valois-Fortier said of his former teammate’s performance. Delaying the operation, I think it was the right decision to make to arrive and give yourself the best possible chance to perform.
Weighing Retirement and Professional Life Outside the Tatami
As the sole Olympic-medalist judoka from Quebec—having captured bronze at the 2021 Tokyo Games—Beauchemin-Pinard holds 12 Grand Slam medals alongside four podium finishes at the senior and junior world championships.
With her return complete, she remains uncertain about entering the selection process for upcoming Olympic cycles. She also confirmed she has no immediate plans to schedule knee surgery.
I don’t think I’ll make the selection path for the next Olympic Games,
she said. I’m going to come back home, and then we’ll look at that with Antoine. We’ll make a final decision eventually. I’m not ready to say today [that she is announcing her sports retirement], but it hasn’t been ruled out.
Away from international competition, Beauchemin-Pinard maintains a structured professional routine. She works three days a week as a tax specialist at an accounting firm while completing her master’s degree in taxation, with plans to obtain her CPA designation the following year.
