Micheline Desgroseilliers
Sport: Mat Sports/Judo
Year Inducted: 2006
Micheline Desgroseilliers made a career of throwing people around. The Cornwall native did it while becoming one of Canada’s premier female judo fighters.
Desgroseilliers can thank her mother, Jackie, for her award-winning judo career.
As a youngster, she showed a keen interest in martial arts, but it was her mother who suggested that she take up judo. She did and never looked back. In a few short years she had become one of the top fighters in her weight class.
Her crowning achievement came in 1985 when she was named to the Canadian team that travelled to the Pan-Am Judo Championships in Cuba. Fighting in the highly competitive 56 kilogram class, she captured a bronze medal, finishing behind American and Cuban fighters.
Desgroseilliers took part in her first Canadian Championship in 1980, and the experience laid a solid foundation. From 1984 to 1986, she won one silver, and three bronze medals at the Canadian Nationals.
At the 1984 Ontario Open Championships, she placed second, and in the same year claimed a bronze medal at the U.S. Open in Colorado.
In 1985, she finished first at the Ontario Open and placed second at the CNE Open.
Along the way, Desgroseilliers earned the coveted black belt.