Valerie Gotay

Valerie Lafon-Gotay (born November 5, 1973 in San Diego, California) is a former judoka from the United States.

Valerie Gotay
Medal record
Representing  United States
Women's judo
Pan American Games
Silver medal – second place 2007 Rio de Janeiro - 57 kg
Pan American Judo Championships
Gold medal – first place 2005 Caguas - 57 kg
Gold medal – first place 2007 Montreal - 57 kg
Gold medal – first place 2008 Miami - 57 kg
Bronze medal – third place 2006 Buenos Aires - 57 kg

Biography

Gotay was born in San Diego. Her grandfather Piere Lafon and father Gerald Lafon[1] are former judoplayers so she had good background for judo from youth. She began competing at age of 14.

At 18 years old, Gotay was supposed to compete in the 1992 Olympic Games in extra-lightweight category. Unfortunately, after working hard to lose some kilos to make her weight category, she became extremely sick with uncontrollable and violent muscle contractions which forced her to withdraw from the competition.

She decided to stop competing after Barcelona.

Gotay later married and has two children Breanna (1996) and Isabella (2001).

In 2004, she came out of retirement. "I missed the training," Gotay said. "I'm a pretty intense person. I love training. I missed training for something, having a goal and working toward it. I came back not even knowing I was coming back."[2]

She was invited to compete in the British Open and in 2007 was part of the United States team at the Pan American Games.[3]

Judo

At the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, she was eliminated in the second round by Isabel Fernández from Spain. Gotay went to Beijing with big (medal) ambitions, but it was not a very good tournament for her. She had already had problems in first round with Gulzat Uralbayeva from Kazakhstan. With three minutes left, she got a second chance, because the Kazakh judoka scored only wazaari, rather than ippon. After this score, the young Kazakh judoka became very passive. Gotay took advantage of this passivity and won by ippon with one minute remaining.[4]

Achievements
YearTournamentPlaceWeight class
1992Olympic Games DNSExtra-Lightweight (- 48 kg)
1996Olympic Games DNS-
2000Olympic Games DNS-
2004Olympic Games DNS-
2008Olympic Games 15thLightweight (- 57 kg)
YearTournamentPlaceWeight class
2007Pan American Games 2ndLightweight (- 57 kg)
YearTournamentPlaceWeight class
2005Pan American Judo Championships 1stLightweight (- 57 kg)
2006Pan American Judo Championships 3rdLightweight (- 57 kg)
2007Pan American Judo Championships 1stLightweight (- 57 kg)
2008Pan American Judo Championships 1stLightweight (- 57 kg)

References
  1. "Gerald Lafon « Lafon's Judo Blog". Archived from the original on 2010-07-01. Retrieved 2010-06-15.
  2. "North County".
  3. "Valerie Gotay: Olympic Judo Athlete and Mom".
  4. Valerie Gotay at Sports Reference
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