Throwing at the top of his class

Tarek Elmayergi’s budding martial arts career hasn’t made a big impression on his friends at Churchill High School, where football generates most of the sports buzz.

His new bling might finally make them take notice, though.

Earlier this month, Elmayergi went to Calgary to fight in the national youth judo championships. He came home wearing the gold medal for the under-15 heavyweight class.

The win, clinched by official decision after a tight July 4 match against a Saskatchewan teen, made Elmayergi the youngest Manitoban judoka to ever claim gold at the youth nationals.

“I was nervous (before the match),” the left-handed fighter recalls. “Then I was excited.”

Only slightly more excited, perhaps, than the family who helped make the win possible. Shirin Elmayergi isn’t just Tarek’s mother, she is also his coach.

“It’s what we expected, and what we prepared for,” Shirin beams of the medal. “He has advanced far above his age as a judoka.”

She would know. At the age of 15, Shirin, who was born in Egypt, became a champion fighter in her home country. She competed throughout the Middle East and Africa, and earned a pile of her own medals before meeting her Canadian future husband, Basil Elmayergi.

So when the couple moved to Winnipeg in 1999, Shirin brought her passion for the sport with her.

“I started a judo club right away when we came here,” she recalls. “I wanted to be the trainer for my kids.”

Now, mother and son practice judo three nights a week and do weight training three other nights.

And Shirin isn’t only training Tarek: of the five Elmayergi children, Tarek’s older brother Adham, 16, is also an accomplished fighter. His sister studies judo casually, while the other two siblings are still too young to begin the sport.

 “Judo makes you feel good about yourself,” says Shirin of why she wanted to pass the sport onto her kids. “Nothing else can give you that feeling, the confidence, the co-ordination. Judo shapes your life as a human being.”

That’s a message that Judo Manitoba coaches hope young Tarek’s win broadcasts across the province.

The Elmayergi family is betting this won’t be the last medal for their second son. Next year, Shirin is hoping to take Tarek and Adham to compete in Europe or Egypt; it’s more competitive out there, Tarek says. And though he started in judo because his mom“was in it, so I wanted to be in it,” he says, one rush keeps him coming back to the mats: “The competitive aspect.”