Kelita Zupancic won silver to highlight a three-medal day for Canada at the World Cup judo competition Sunday.
Zupancic, from Whitby, Ont., won the silver medal in the under 70-kilogram class, while Amy Cotton of Antigonish, N.S., and Montreal's Marylise Levesque, won bronze medals fighting out of the under 78 kg weight class.
Zupancic, ranked 11th in the world in her weight division, began in impressive fashion after defeating Brazil's Glaudia Lima and Guatemala's Andrea Menegazzo to qualify for the semifinal.
There Zupancic faced 18th-ranked Brazilian Maria Portela, who she beat by ippon, or full point, which is the highest score a fighter can achieve in a judo contest.
"We've faced off frequently in tournaments this year and today (Sunday) happened to be my day," Zupancic said.
Colombian's Yuri Alvear, ranked eighth, beat Zupancic in the gold-medal match by ippon.
"Things didn't go very well. She's an ex-world champion and every time I tried to attack, she found away to escape. You could say that things didn't go my way," said Zupancic.
"It was the first time that I had faced her, so in that sense it was a good experience. She's very sound, technically."
Zupancic's silver medal comes after she collected bronze at the Rio de Janeiro Grand Slam last week.
"For the last two months, I've participated at many training camps in Japan," she said. "I trained so hard that there was no question in my mind that I would do well in this latest series of competitions. I'm probably in the best condition that I could be in, and I have full confidence in my capacities."
Cotton and Levesque followed an almost identical route to winning bronze medals.
Cotton, ranked 18th in the world, beat Brazil's Samantha Soares and followed that up with a win over Venezuela's Keivi Pinto.
But in the semifinal China's Zhehui Zhang, ranked 32nd, beat Cotton in controversial fashion.
"I was really disappointed with the refereeing. The judges gave an ippon to my opponent, even though I was the one who performed the move," Cotton said.
"It's frustrating because if I had made it to the final, I would have received important points that would have helped with my Olympic selection."
Cotton faced Guatemala's Mirla Nolberto Labriel for the bronze medal and won by ippon.
"It was a very technical fight," she said. "I didn't want to get caught making the same move that went against me the previous match."
Meanwhile, the 22nd-ranked Levesque started off her competition with a solid fight against Amy Cortes from Colombia.
"She beat me last April in the Pan-American Championships, a loss that deprived me of a bronze medal. So in many ways, this was a revenge match for me," said Levesque, who would go on to beat Mirla Nolberto Labriel of Guatemala in the second round.
In the semifinals, Portugal's Yahima Ramirez was Levesque's obstacle to the final, but the Canadian lost after trying to be too adventurous.
"The beginning of the bout went well, but after that I tried an attacking manoeuvre in the wrong position, and my opponent took advantage to counter-attack and pin me with an ippon," she said.
In her match for the bronze, Levesque defeated the Venezuelan, Keivi Pinto, by scoring two waza-ari, or half a point.
"I'd never faced her before, but luckily I had trained with her during the week. I was very prudent at first, but eventually everything came together," she said.