THREE-TIME Canadian judo champion Olia Berger is contemplating retirement after finishing fifth at last week's Pan American Championships and failing to qualify to represent Canada at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
A Canwest News Service story on the weekend said the Pan Ams in Florida were the 27-year-old's last event before retiring. But in an interview from her Montreal home on Sunday, the Winnipegger said she wasn't at that point just yet.
Olia Berger will fight in Quebec City later this month and then take it from there.
"I haven't officially decided," said Berger, whose top result in the plus-78 kilogram category was a first-place finish in the 2006 Dax Cup in Ceje, Slovenia. She has never qualified to compete at an Olympic Games.
"I'm definitely doing the Canadian Championships coming up (Quebec City, May long weekend). (Retirement) is probable, yeah. I don't see myself doing that much more international fighting. Maybe within Canada."
Berger, who'll turn 28 next month, said she's been discussing possible retirement with her national team coaches and with her father, Mark Berger, one of the premier judo coaches in Canada.
But she isn't ready to officially declare her retirement.
"I'm going to take the summer to think about things," she said. "I've been doing this for a while and I didn't make the qualification for the Olympics, so it's time to re-evaluate everything, really. It's where I am in life. I'd probably have to go back to school.
"So I'm slowly deciding all of those things."
-- Chris Cariou
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