Border divides but love conquers this judo jodi

Baku: French and British judokas Automne Pavia and Ashley McKenzie find it amusing that just over a week after the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, where the Duke of Wellington ended Napoleon’s career, their relationship is rock solid. Indeed McKenzie, the Commonwealth Games champion in the 60kg category, is the happiest he has ever been having finally got together with Pavia in Cuba in June last year, 10 years after they first became close at a juniors tournament in Lyon, France.

“When you want something and you can’t have it, you want it even more,” McKenzie said in an interview alongside Olympic and Worlds bronze medallist Pavia as they prepare to compete in the European Games in Baku.“Now I have it I don’t want to let her go.” “At the world championships (in Russia last August) when a British teammate did well I said ‘well done’ as that is what you do,” he said.

“But when she won her bronze my heart was beating so fast, I was so happy. I knew she was the one,” added McKenzie, who in three days time will celebrate along with Pavia their first year together as a couple.“He is almost too good to be true,” Pavia said. “He calms me. He  lets me breathe, but he is always there waiting for me after competition.”

For McKenzie, who also won European bronze in 2013, Pavia’s human qualities are as important to their relationship as the fact they share a similar regime. “We are similar, we we cook and do other things together. She cares about her family and judo. She doesn’t smoke, wants to be a TV star and is very romantic. She’s not a party girl,” he said.