MEET THE NEXT WAVE
MacFadyen boys continue rich family judo tradition
There’s no anonymity for 19- year- old Adam MacFadyen. “A lot of people I don’t know come up and say: ‘ Oh, you’re from that family. I know you,’ MacFadyen says. “I get that all the time.”
His isn’t just any family, but rather the Takahashi family, whose national and international wrestling and judo accomplishments have been celebrated by the Ottawa sports community for nearly a halfcentury.
MacFadyen, the eldest son of Tina Takahashi and Sean MacFadyen, could be considered a leader of the family’s next wave in not only wrestling and judo, but also sambo, a martial art and combat sport with its beginnings in the Russian military.
Just last month, he won the 62-kilogram sambo title at the Pan American championships in Panama City.
“I like how I get to use most of my moves from both wrestling and judo,” he said in an interview at the Takahashi Dojo facility in Hintonburg. “In judo, I can’t use a lot of my leg shots that I do in wrestling, and in wrestling I can’t do some of the submissions I do in judo, but sambo kind of lets me do almost all of them.”
He appears to know how to “do” all those moves well, with his resumé also showing Canadian championship medals in Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling and a silver at judo senior nationals in 2011.
Brother Torin MacFadyen, who turns 17 next week, won a Pan Am cadet wrestling title last year in Venezuela, adding to wrestling gold at 2011 nationals and Canadian age-group judo medals each year since 2009.
Fourteen-year-old Liam MacFadyen, who can claim national cadet wrestling medals for 2011 and 2012, will join his older brothers, four clubmates and a handful of others from the Ottawa area in this week’s Canadian judo championships in Richmond, B.C.
After nationals, Adam MacFadyen will remain in B.C. for a training camp before travelling to the Czech Republic and Germany for the European Judo Union junior tournaments. He’ll have to slow down at least temporarily, though, because of planned surgery on his nose in August to repair damage from the 2012 wrestling nationals.
He could be overdue for a break, frankly. Thanks to wrestling, judo and sambo, which he only really got into a year ago, he trains about 25 hours over six days a week.
“I just love to compete,” the St. Paul High School graduate said. “That’s the main thing. I just love doing it. I find it very fun. I like training and I love to travel.
“For me it’s not something hard to do.”
His long-term goal is competing in the Olympics, just like uncles Phil (twice in wrestling) and Ray (three times in judo). Mother Tina Takahashi was a Canadian Olympic team coach in 1988 after winning a World University Games championship.
“Since sambo is not in the Olympics, I want to go in wrestling or judo,” MacFadyen said. “I’m just not sure which one I want to go into yet.”
He concedes that trying to go for the Olympics in two sports at the same time isn’t likely, but he’s ranked high enough in Canada in both that it’s not unreasonable for him to dream of the Games in one or the other.
He thinks Rio de Janeiro in 2016 isn’t out of the question in judo, but it’s not just up to him because countries earn spots based on international tournament results. Canada had a competitor in the men’s 60-kilogram class at the London Olympics in 2012, but not in the same weight class in wrestling.
MacFadyen also believes it’s less common for athletes in their early 20s to qualify for Olympic wrestling.
Sean MacFadyen, who introduced his sons to sambo and recently became president of the United Canadian Sambo Federation, says the sport remains most popular in Eastern Europe, Japan and South Korea, with smaller pockets of interest in North and South America and Western Europe.
It’s included in the 2013 Universiade Games in Russia, but Adam only needed three victories to win the Pan American title at 62 kg, and the first was a walkover after a Honduran failed to qualify for weight. He defeated fighters from Colombia and Nicaragua to claim his championship in “sport sambo,” which, unlike “combat sambo,” does not allow striking.
“Sambo is more like freestyle wrestling, closer to what judo was” before rules changes, Sean MacFadyen said.
Adam MacFadyen said he can’t pick a favourite from among judo, wrestling or sambo, but has absorbed enough from the collection of high-level athletes in his family to know that every tournament is different, with the depth of field varying according to where a competition is held and which countries are represented.
That is only one of the lessons learned since his mother began taking toddler Adam to the dojo in his third year of life. He began practising judo at about age four and he entered wrestling with his school team in Grade 7.
Since then he has had time to soak up more family lessons and become accustomed to the expectations.
“It does give me a little bit of extra pressure,” he said, “but I use that as motivation.”