A Summer with Marti Malloy (2014)

29/07/2025

[FRA – Cet article est une reprise de la version anglaise d’un papier publié en octobre 2014 dans le bimestriel français L’Esprit du judo. Cette version anglaise a été mise en ligne cet automne-là sur l’ancienne version du site Internet de l’EDJ, mais n’était plus visible depuis la mise à jour dudit site à l’automne 2020. La voici à nouveau.

ENG – This article is a reprint of the English version of a piece published in October 2014 in the French bimonthly magazine L’Esprit du judo. This English version was posted online that autumn on the former version of the EDJ website, but was no longer visible since the site update in autumn 2020. Here it is again.]

*Chelyabinsk, Russia, August 2014. Marti Malloy on the left with her teammates Kayla Harrison, Hannah Martin and Hana Carmichael. ©DR/JudoAKD*

Right after the London Olympics, we introduced you to Marti Malloy [cf. L’Esprit du judo #40], the « woman sana in corpore sano » embodied. This time, the American athlete was ready to go further. Even though she didn’t win a medal in Chelyabinsk, the journey was the real goal. Ultimately, that goal was achieved. – JudoAKDReplay#008.

On June 23rd, 2014, Marti Louise Malloy turned 28. Born in Oak Harbor (Washington State, on the rainy northern portion of the US Pacific coast), the #4 ranked athlete in the U57kg category didn’t need to create a reminder to know where she would be two months later. « Chelyabinsk, August 27th, Marti’s day! » became her closing line for every Skype session that summer, always accompanied by a smile and a wink. The challenge was connected to her steady progression: 5th in Paris 2011, 3rd in London 2012, 2nd in Rio 2013. For her, the Russian World Championships would mark the sixth milestone of a career that began as an U63kg competitor in the shadow of icon Valerie Gotay [cf. EDJ14].

Nerves. The only daughter among the four Malloy children began the summer as fresh as her season, which was starting in earnest at the same time. In November 2013, the Tokyo Grand Slam was her first tournament since her silver medal in Rio. She came second, defeated by Japanese competitor Nae Udaka, who would become World champion in 2014. Then a knee injury sidelined her for two months following the European training camps in Lignano and Mittersill. Winner of the Pan American Championships in Ecuador at the end of April, she was surprised in her first match in June during the Havana Grand Prix by the invasive gripping style and twisted kata guruma of Cuban Aliuska Ojeda – who had previously beaten Marti during the team competition at the « PanAms ». Right after the tournament, during the training camp, the US athlete made it a matter of honor to throw this opponent at least once a day… After Cuba, she took bronze then silver at the Pan American Open in San Salvador and the Grand Slam in Tyumen. In both tournaments, she was beaten by her opponent eight years younger, Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard from Canada. This junior even had the audacity to deny her the prestigious first place in the world ranking for the category.

*Marti Malloy with Travis Stevens, her lifelong accomplice. ©Marie Pedro/JudoAKD*

Hyundai. The year 2014 marked another milestone. Ten years earlier, Marti had made a crucial decision for her career. It was right after summer 2004. Jimmy Pedro‘s second Olympic medal was still fresh in the memory of every US judo player. Consistently on national podiums since turning 16, this military daughter understood that she could stagnate if she didn’t escape her hometown dojo. At 18, a youngster named Travis Stevens made her a proposal: come live and train with him at his grandparents’ house in Tacoma, in the suburbs of Seattle, WA, right on Interstate 5 between Vancouver and Portland. « We stayed two or three months in Tacoma, » recalls the champion. « When we didn’t find what we expected there, we put our bags in Travis’s car trunk and decided to spend six weeks in San Jose, CA, six weeks at Colorado Springs, CO, then six weeks at the Pedro’s. Our idea was to stay wherever the training was best for us. » The first California stop would prove to be the right one. The white Hyundai Excel would die shortly after those first 1,400 kilometers, with a soaked cloth serving as a plug for the fuel tank. « I drove twelve hours straight, » remembers the U81kg competitor. « We never made it to Colorado Springs. Marti found what she was looking for in San Jose, CA. After two years, I went directly to the Pedro’s in Boston, MA. By plane, this time! »

*After her Olympic medal in London with Yoshihiro Uchida. ©Christal Ransom/JudoAKD*

Camp. At San Jose State University, where she would successively graduate in advertising, psychology, and new media, Marti lived daily alongside an underappreciated chapter of US West Coast history. Mike Swain, Shintaro Nakano, and especially Yoshihiro Uchida became her mentors. The first became the first World champion in American judo history in 1987. The now U73kg Mexican David Torres, Marti’s boyfriend of several years, works with him at his martial arts equipment company. The second was national junior champion in Japan in 1998 and 1999 in the U60kg category. Last but not least, the third is 94 years old and still stunning in ne waza. His life story is simply « extraordinary, » as Marti explains. In 1956, he was among the first, along with another colleague from Berkeley University, to devise an innovative weight category system. For the record, the dojo where Marti trains now bears the old sensei‘s name. It’s located – like a quiet Japanese revenge – in the same building where, during World War II, Mr. Uchida’s parents and siblings were imprisoned in an internment camp…

Sato. Back to 2014. As every summer, Marti trains with Shintaro, Mike, and some teammates who make the effort not to flee campus during university holidays. « The fewer we are on the mat, the more focused we become, » she says, returning from one of these sweltering training sessions and looking at the bright side. On August 2nd, she wins the Miami Open. This final warm-up before Worlds allows her to climb to #3 in the rankings. Then she goes to Boston for a week-long training camp at the Pedro’s, for once without the Canadian neighbors – perhaps due to close rivalries in U57kg (Marti vs. Beauchemin-Pinard), U78kg (Kayla Harrison vs. Catherine Roberge), and U81kg (Travis Stevens vs. Antoine Valois-Fortier). She spends unforgettable evenings at her best friend Kayla Harrison’s spacious apartment – both had made a kind of hedonistic pact until the Olympics… Then back to San Jose for one final intensive week with a luxury sparring partner named… Aiko Sato, 2011 World champion, now coach at Ryotokugi University with famous athletes like Yuka Nishida and Tomoko Fukumi. « Before London, I was looking for a sparring partner. It happened that Aiko had been passed over by Kaori Matsumoto for the Games. Plus, she had already beaten Automne Pavia. And she was in San Jose on vacation because she wanted to enroll at the University to improve her English. » A financial arrangement was reached between both parties. For one year, the Japanese became the luxury partner expected and, even more, a good friend of the US athlete. After returning to Japan last spring, she was the one who proposed this final summer assistance to Marti.

Matsumoto. Marti had never been in a tournament draw before. Now it was done, this Sunday, August 24th, in front of a screen at the Malakhit Hotel in Chelyabinsk. The immediate impact was like a front kick: her first match would be against Japanese Olympic champion Kaori Matsumoto. « I’m ready, » the challenger simply responded with a smile… Three days later, at 12:44 PM on mat 1, the clash lasted only 24 seconds. That’s how long the US judoka needed to « hear three times the horrible sound of cracking bones in Matsumoto’s elbow » while attempting a devastating juji-gatame on her stubborn opponent. « After that, for me she was the favorite », Brazilian Rafaela Silva, still the reigning champion of the category, would later confess. But… Winning so quickly against a girl she admits to « studying for six years » was a kind of trap. Mentally, the winner needed a few seconds to refocus for the following match against Telma Monteiro. That was just the time the crafty Portuguese needed to throw her with a reverse seoi-nage scored as yuko. Marti wouldn’t see her back again until the end, as her experienced opponent alternated between false attacks, ponytail adjustments and tactical limping. It was 1:38 PM on August 27th in Chelyabinsk. A golden dream had just slipped away. « She ‘Telma-tized’ you, » her boyfriend would sigh via text message. « I wish the fight had lasted one more minute because the shidos were starting to accumulate, » Jimmy Pedro would lament, speaking between the lines about the brief duration of women’s matches. « It just happened, » the main person concerned would comment the day after, « and there’s no point beating a dead horse. » What’s next? « Who knows? I’ll be 30 in Rio, 34 in Tokyo… I would really love to become World champion before I retire, but at the same time, I feel like I’d love to start my life too. » Welcome to the golden age of golden score. – Anthony Diao, may-august 2014. Opening picture: ©Marti Malloy/JudoAKD.