Legally blind Kelowna woman wins gold at martial arts competition in Kamloops | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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Legally blind Kelowna woman wins gold at martial arts competition in Kamloops

Michelle Jorgensen brings the first-ever gold medal at the Super Cup Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championships home to Kelowna on Apr. 7, 2018.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Alliance Jiu-Jitsu - Kelowna

KELOWNA - A Kelowna woman, who is legally blind, won the gold medal at the inaugural Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competition in Kamloops last week.

Michelle Jorgensen, 24, won three matches at the Super Cup Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championships on Apr. 7. She brought the gold medal to her team Alliance Jiu-Jitsu in Kelowna. It was her first-ever tournament.

Jorgensen is a full-time psychology student at UBCO who went to a Women’s Only Self-Defense Seminar at the Alliance Jiu-Jitsu Academy approximately 12 months ago.

After the seminar Jorgensen began spending her free time at the club practising Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Muay-Thai Kickboxing.

A media release says she also quit smoking that week, and has been smoke-free for a year.

“At the self-defense seminar Michelle was the first to arrive and it only took me about a 30 seconds to realize she had a vision issue,” Alliance Jiu-Jitsu owner, Sean McHugh, says.

Jorgensen was born with a rare eye disease called PFV (Persistent Fetal Vasculature) which affects only a couple of people in Canada per year.

She credits a lot of her success to her coaches Sean McHugh, Cody Earp, Kristian Fraser and her team at Alliance Jiu-Jitsu.

McHugh says Jorgensen is a work horse and deserves to be recognized for the hard work she puts in.

As well as being a full-time student and athlete, Jorgensen volunteers at a variety of charities and still attends her practise consistently.

Jorgensen is also planning on competing in Richmond this June.


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