Yukon combat sport athletes from the Shiroumakai Judo Club in Whitehorse spent four days in Calgary competing at the 2025 Canadian Open National Championships from May 15 to 18, where three athletes earned medals for their performances.
Five of the club’s athletes travelled to Alberta for the nationals and grappled with judo athletes from across Canada, following earlier territorial championship bouts held at the Canada Games Centre in Whitehorse on May 3.
Sisters Jaymi and Lia Hinchey, as well as Kaylee Fortier, Huxley Briggs and Liam Gishler, represented the Shiroumakai Judo Club and the Yukon at the national championships. The Yukon contingent faced judokas from clubs across Western and Central Canada, including Ontario and Quebec.
Jaymi and Lia, along with Fortier, earned medals in ne-waza bouts, a judo discipline that focuses on ground techniques. Rather than throws or trips, ne-waza involves controlling an opponent on the mat through pins, chokes and joint locks.
The Hinchey sisters brought home the majority of the Yukon’s medal haul at the 2025 Canadian Open National Championships in their respective weight classes.
Jaymi earned three medals, taking bronze in the under-21 under-57 kg weight class, silver in ne-waza under-63 kg weight class and bronze in the ne-waza grand champion division. Lia won gold in the ne-waza under-63 kg weight class and tied with her sister for bronze in the grand champion ne-waza event, while Fortier secured silver in the ne-waza over-63 kg weight class.
“We’ve been training three times a week for quite a while. We’ve done a lot of tournaments leading up this year. There’s a Canadian national circuit where you can collect points all year. So we try and do as many of those tournaments as we can. Our competitive team has been training since 2021,” Jaymi told the News.
Jaymi said she was proud of her performance, calling it a major accomplishment in her first year of under-21 competition after moving up a weight class.
“It was quite a big accomplishment for that, I found, and I think I performed some of the best judo,” she said.
Jaymi, who earned her first-degree black belt in February, is considered the most decorated athlete in Judo Yukon history, head coach Aaron Jensen said. A national medallist and top-10 ranked competitor in Canada, she has won bronze at the 2023 Canada Winter Games and multiple medals at Elite Eight and national-level competitions, he said.
“Her and her sister are both medalled nationally. I believe they’re both ranked in the top 10 in Canada,” Jensen said.
Contact Jake Howarth at jake.howarth@yukon-news.com
