Lakeport graduate Lindsay Rushton, shown here practising, helped lead the Brock Wrestling Club to the men's and women's titles at the Ontario junior championships with her fourth straight provincial title.
News Page
Flexing their muscles
Brock Wrestling Club posts its first double: men's and women's titles at Ontario junior finals
Bernie Puchalski, The Standard
stcatharines 1/29/03
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Lakeport graduate Lindsay Rushton, shown here practising, helped lead the Brock Wrestling Club to the men's and women's titles at the Ontario junior championships with her fourth straight provincial title. |
The Brock Wrestling Club scored its first ever double at the Ontario junior championships.
The club had won men's and women's team titles in the past, but never both in the same year. That changed when the club took both honours in Brampton this past weekend.
"Our club is getting stronger," understated coach Marty Calder, adding the team is made up of junior-aged Brock students and club wrestlers from Niagara.
Calder credited the coaching in the Niagara Region for the team's success, mentioning Lakeport's Bill Smith, Laura Secord's Luke Collison, Beamsville's Dave Collie and Thorold's Brian Kilroy.
Leading the charge for the Brock club was Lakeport graduate Lindsay Rushton, who had just another day at the office, winning her fourth straight provincial title.
"It's not as big of a deal as when I was younger," the 19-year-old said.
Rushton won four matches at 55 kilograms to defend her title, three by technical superiority and one by pin.
The victory was the first step in a process that Rushton hopes will lead to her fourth straight national title and a return trip to the world championships.
But she knows it won't be easy.
"I have to come in every day, morning and afternoon, and I need to do more mental preparation."
At the 2001 worlds, Rushton settled for bronze after losing her semifinal match by one point.
"I've tried to put it at the back of my mind, but I do think about it often," she said. "But it's all a learning experience."
"It's tough when you dominate in your own area," Calder added. "You need to be challenged or you get complacent."
And Rushton will get that challenge when she moves to the senior ranks next year.
"She has the physical ability not too many people have. For her, it's concentration level and grasping new knowledge," Calder said.
Beamsville's Liz Martindale also captured gold at the provincials, topping the 51-kilogram division.
Winning gold on the men's side were Brock University first-year student Jamie Macari at 55 kilograms, going a perfect 4-0, including a 13-5 win over national junior silver medalist Frank Mensah in the final; Beamsville's Joel Neufeld at 74 kilograms; St. Catharines' Nathan Richardson at 84 kilograms; and St. Catharines' Mike Neufeld at 96 kilograms.
Richardson pulled the biggest upset of the tournament, defeating Hamilton's Sheldon Francis. Francis was second last year at the junior nationals and was Ontario's flag-bearer at the Canada Summer Games.
"This time, he held his composure and he's starting to get his man strength," Calder said. "And I think a lot of it in the past was his lack of mental strength."
First-year Brock student Erik McKinnon of Mississauga went 3-1 at 66 kilograms to earn silver and St. Francis graduate Dan Miles took bronze at 120 kilograms.
Other female medal winners were St. Catharines' Fraser Bowslaugh, second at 72 kilograms and Beamsville's Jody Dykstra, third at 63 kilograms. Stephanie Harding of St. Catharines was fourth at 77 kilograms and Crystal Hutton of St. Catharines was fifth at 48 kilograms.
Also on the women's university side, Brock rookie Golda Parahoo of Mississauga placed second at 63 kilograms and teammate Jenn Hansen of Peterborough was second at 77 kilograms. Brock student Patti Courtney of Brampton placed fourth overall at 51 kilograms
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1/29/03
Candace Zepp: Toss em up! Mud wrestling, or Jello wrestling?
Joe Wells: Well, I think Jello. Jello is much more appealing.
CZ: Best Damn Sports Show Period or Pardon the Interruption?
JW: Oh I like Tom Arnold.
CZ: Time to play the stock market. Hulk Hogan. Buy or sell?
JW: Never would have bought him in the first place.
CZ: Creatine.
JW: There is conflicting information on that, so probably sell.
CZ: Bodybuilding.
JW: I would rather have a powerlifter. You gotta wonder what those bodybuilders are thinking.
CZ: Salary Caps.
JW: Sell.
CZ: Fact or fiction. You can smell what the Rock is cooking.
JW: Is that libelous? Well yeah, he played football and won a national title. All those guys are suspect though. They're so huge.
CZ: Fill in the blank. Without wrestling ___.
JW: I would be spending a lot more time raising my own children as opposed to someone else's children!
CZ: Pac-10 wrestling is ___.
JW: Good and needs to be better.
CZ: The world watches the Super Bowl because ___.
(Assistant Coach Jeff Cardwell breaks in): There's nothing else to do!
JW: The commercials.
CZ: Your experience at Oregon State has been ___.
JW: Great, fulfilling. It's a lovely place. I had a professor tell me my first year here (because I came from Ann Arbor), "Oh Corvallis is just like Ann Arbor ... in 1956!"
CZ: The WWE is ___.
JW: Low-grade theatre. There's no deliberation, there's a good guy and a bad guy. It's only entertainment, to some people, I guess. Maybe we really haven't come too far in 2,000 years.
CZ: What's your take on women wrestling? Why is there not a bigger market for them at the college level? It seems like participation is high for kid wrestlers but they die off as they get older.
JW: Wrestling is listed as an emerging sport in the NCAA. There are some college teams for women, but not at the Division I-A level. One of our former assistant coaches, Terry Steiner, is now the USA women's wrestling coach. He will coach the Olympics in Greece. It's just like anything else, it takes time for people to feel like it's okay. If guys can wrestle, why can't girls? In Texas they have a women's team. Every time they start a men's team, they add women to the roster -- even if it might be five individuals. The coach will just coach both squads. They'll have a dual meet where the guys and then girls compete. Michigan has a women's state tournament for high schoolers. It's now in the 5-6,000 number at the high school level. I went to the Oregon classic and there were two girls wrestling. I saw one girl beat the guy.
On the international scene, countries like Sweden and Norway have women wrestlers. Japan even! It was kind of a shock to me. There are a few teams in college that have women competing against women, but not many. Most women make the team and wrestle other men.
The way I look at it, I have a daughter and son and I want to see the same opportunities for my daughter as I see for my son. Our assistant Jeff Cardwell has two sisters who beat the tar out of one of our All-American wrestlers.
CZ: What do you think keeps wrestling out of the media spotlight?
JW: Well, there's no ball involved. Maybe if we were wrestling for a ball, putting it to the edge of the mat, I don't know. I just think the media tries to create various scenarios to make it presentable on television -- wrestling might be too slow moving. If it was non-stop action, well I'm not sure. I'm not such a huge fan of baseball, it's slow-moving like golf -- and both are great sports. Even though they involve a ball it's hard to watch on TV -- so wrestling just has two strikes against it.
CZ: What changes from high school to college?
JW: The biggest difference is the level of competition. Everyone in college has been a multiple time state champion. So everyone you wrestle each week could be pretty accomplished. The competition is just really steep, so there is a learning curve involved in making the adjustment. You really go through this with every sport. You have to balance the athletic demands and being a student at this level. It's like carrying on two jobs at one time. Someone who can do that is somebody who employers will be interested in after college. It's very demanding and at the same time you look back on it as one of the best times of your lives. You have to galvanize that college experience with the team bonding and relationships you form. You will remember those relationships forever. It's very neat but difficult at the same time.
CZ: What's the market like after college? What percentage moves beyond the college experience?
JW: Well, again you are stepping up again a large level of competition. You have to weigh your advancement probability with your usefulness in the job market. Probably eight percent of the national team is made up of assistant coaches. So people who are at the college level coaching are continuing to compete. They may do that for 2-4 years, or longer. You can compete when you are young, when you are older you can't keep competing. If you look at the national team, it is comprised of three to four guys per weight class. They are given a training stipend and bonuses added in. If you win a tournament or a gold medal you will get X amount from USA Wrestling and a lump sum from some of the other sponsors. That way, you can compete and make a living as a coach. Being young and still competitive, obviously you are very attractive as far as young athletes go when looking for coaches at a program to enter into.
As far as numbers go, there's seven weight classes, so 28 guys -- and there's probably 100 Division I-A programs. You are going from 100, where each program has maybe 30-40 -- so 3,000 guys -- to 28, essentially. That's a pretty dramatic change.
To get to that point, there are tryouts and the US Open championship every year. You can go to the US Open if you are a part of USA Wrestling -- just pay to get your membership card. Once you earn a spot on the ladder, you are designated to get the stipend. You will get additional training, say in Colorado Springs ... or put on a team that does off-season competition in Russia, for example. Once you get on board, you work your way to the top spot and stay there for a couple years maybe. You really need some private funding to compete that way though and most of the competitors are indeed assistant coaches of some sort.
CZ: What do you think about unhealthy weight loss tactics? How is it regulated?
JW: It's real strict about how we regulate it in college. We don't really have specific regulations after college, you can lose weight however you want to. There's no Olympic rule about it. The philosophy that we maintain is to lift weight instead of cut weight, so you build a better machine. How you determine whether you're doing that, well, we have specific guidelines to follow as an NCAA sport. In wrestling, the safeguards have spelled out specifically what we must do. There's a certain time the athletes come in, you do a skin-fold body composition measurement. Then we monitor that skin-fold and do a hydration test with a spectrometer to determine the percentage of body that is hydrated. There's a specific number you need to maintain. You have to be fully hydrated at a specific weight to get signed off. We tell the kids as a ballpark figure that when they come to school in the fall they should be within one weight class of where they want to be. You get about three months to bring your weight down, which can be pretty narrow parameters when you consider that you cannot be less than five percent body fat. Most of the guys in the real competitive range are around eight percent. Logistically, the things we do make these athletes a lot better. The high schools have picked up on our tactics and will start using some sort of rules and regulations. Now as a college coach, you go to the Junior National tournament and you don't see kids cutting excessive weight. That way, the class you see the kid wrestle in is probably the weight you will have him wrestle in college.
You can't use plastics, you can't use laxatives, no sauna. Some of it is a little too stringent, because use of the sauna can be real therapeutic. However, if a kid uses it to dehydrate and cut weight, then he's missing the point. I think a lot of people fought the rules for a long period of time, then finally everyone picked up on it. It definitely wasn't easy. Athletes got the point of cutting excessive weight because they might have felt they needed to be this certain lower weight to be successful, even though they are torturing themselves. Basically what we do now is throw the kids on the scale and that's the weight they wrestle at.
CZ: If you had the opportunity to change anything, would you?
JW: I was part of the rules committee for the past four years. People really want to see more pins, but we raise some questions. Do we allow people to use holds or techniques that might inflict pain or injure someone? How do you get into a contest which you are able to compete and take something out of the guy but at the same time not injure him? You have to eliminate the brutality, but keep the contest. It really gets to the nitty gritty -- how much pressure can you put on this joint, for example. On one hand you want the kid to be successful, but on the other hand you need the kid to be able to withstand the barrage. Balance is important to protect an athlete from a perhaps more superior athlete. That's a really tough call. There's a real ebb and flow there.
CZ: The general public wants to know if you've ever had a really sheltered kid walk in thinking that college wrestling was just like the WWE, and come in costume all prepared.
JW: (laughs) Oh no, no. Kids are prepared by this age to know the difference.
CZ: Well, how about beefing up your staff with those enormous WWE guys? Wouldn't that attract recruits?
JW: Most of those guys wouldn't make it past the door. I'd hire somebody like Kurt Angle, who has been around real wrestling before. He actually has knowledge that could serve the athletes real well. But someone like Hulk Hogan? What good would he be?
You heard it straight from the horse's mouth. Joe Wells has now left the Hot Seat. Check it out next week.
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Howorun pins down gold at Ontario wrestling meet
FRANK JUZENAS, Staff Writer 1/29/03
Matmen's Jillian Wiltshire seems perplexed as she takes on Hailey Dermott of New Tech in a junior women's 44 kilograms match. Dermott won silver and Wiltshire the bronze. |
Steph Howorun just keeps getting better in wrestling. In just her second year in the sport the 18-year old from Brampton capped off the Ontario Junior and Senior Open on Saturday at the Brampton Centre for Sports and Entertainment, by winning the junior women's 72 kilogram division.
Representing the host Matmen United Wrestling Club Howorun defeated Fraser Bowslaugh of the Brock (St. Catharines) club, by a 9-3 score.
Howorun picked up wrestling as a way to train for her other sport, judo, where she is also one of the best in Canada. Still being fairly new in wrestling, Howorun is still learning a lot about the sport.
"Last year I relied on my judo, now I'm using more wrestling moves,'' said Howorun, who attends Mayfield Secondary School.
Kevin Lomas, her coach with the Matmen agrees she is now becoming more of a wrestler.
"I think she has a good chance to qualify to go to the worlds in Athens Greece (later this year),'' said Lomas.
Howorun and Bowslaugh were the only women in their weight class at the Brampton meet so neither had to wrestle before the final. The two know each other quite well though, even though they had never wrestled each other. Bowslaugh is also a judo competitor and they have faced each other in that sport.
If Howorun is able to qualify for the worlds in wrestling it would give her a rare double as in the fall she went to the world junior judo championships in Korea.
Howorun enjoyed winning her provincial crown at home in Brampton.
"I had a lot of friends here from school,'' she said.
The Matmen, Club has representatives from both Brampton and Mississauga.
Frank Mensah, a 19-year old student at Bramalea lost 9-3 to Jamie Macari of Brock in the junior men 55 kgs. division. Mensah says he has wrestled him many times and is a good friend. The two were tied at 3-3 after the first round but Macari took over in the second round.
"Every time I wrestle him I get closer,'' said Mensah who won the provincials last year and is the national Greco-Roman gold medallist.
Lomas said that Macari is moving up a weight class at the nationals while Mensah will not so he feels the Brampton wrestler also has a good chance qualify for the worlds. Mensah won two earlier matches to get to the final
In the 96 kg. junior men division Matmen's Patrick Okpalugo lost 12-6 to Mike Neufeld of Brock.
Okpalguo, an 18 year who attends Turner Fenton, had fought Neufeld about a month ago and lost 5-1 so Lomas takes it as a good sign that he was able to score six points this time. He points out Newfeld is more experienced and trains at a club with a lot of university wrestlers, which gives him an advantage.
Okpalugo also feels that he is making progress against Neufeld.
"I look forward to wrestling him at nationals and at OFSAA (the Ontario Federation of Schools Athletic Association),'' he said. Okpalugo was a silver medallist last year at both the Ontario juveniles and at OFSAA. On Saturday he won two earlier matches, both by superiority, 10-0 scores.
Teresa Piotrowski, a graduate of Chinguacousy Secondary School, competing for Guelph Wrestling Club finished first at 55 kgs for senior women.
Matmen won the junior women's team title. Other juniors included Ellie Travis first in heavyweight, Alana King second at 51 kgs, Sophie Mancini second at 55 kgs, Jillian Wiltshire third at 44 kgs, Caitie Wyckoff fourth at 44 kgs, Leah Wyght fourth at 59 kgs, Kim Noakes fifth at 63 kgs and Jenn Beedham sixth at 48 kgs.
Brampton's Patty Courtney, wrestling for Brock took fourth at 51 kgs.
Matmen's Mike Hunter was fifth in the junior men's 74 kgs division.
In the senior men's division, Brampton's Dave Gradziel finished fifth at 66 kgs, competing for the London-Western Wrestling Club.
Junior winners from the Brampton meet are named members of Team Ontario for the Canadian Junior Championships March 15 to 17 in Fredericton N.B. However the nationals are an open meet so others are also allowed to enter. The senior nationals are May 1 to 3 Saskatoon.
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The first Mahila Bharat Kesari has the wrestling gene in her-Sonika Kaliram, 17, is the daughter of Guru Chandgi Ram. But it does not make things any easier for her. The training is as rigorous as any male wrestler's. The Asian junior gold medallist runs 12 to 15 km every day, exercises for one and a half hours, and trains on the mat for two hours. For practicing wrestling 'holds' she uses a 'dummy' opponent.
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DEADLY GRIP
Sonika Kaliram, Mahila Bharat Kesari, with her 'dummy' opponent
After breakfast-several eggs, almonds in milk, sprouted grams, bread, rice and bananas-and 45 minutes of rest, she goes for weight training. The session lasts for one and a half hours, with all kinds of muscle exercises after which she relaxes, bathes, and listens to music.
The evening session begins with weight training, physical exercises and mat wrestling exercises followed by volleyball and basketball. Before sleep, she makes sure that she studies for at least one hour as she is still in school. But the grappler girl's eyes are fixed on the Asian Championships in Mongolia for the moment.
Wrestling: Indian grapplers finish 2nd at Izmir
8- Indian women - wrestling team - placed 2nd - in Izmir, TURKEY - May 21/2002(for full story-Click on Wrestling:)
The Hindu : Sweet revenge for Sunita
... her defeat to Alka Tomar of Uttar Pradesh, in the National Games, by beating her
in extra time in the second round of the National wrestling championship here
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by Jamie Amato
Staff Writer Jan. 27, 2003
During the school day, Chrissy Westbrook is a cosmetologist-in-training, studying the various arts of make-up application, skin care and hair design. After school, she's tumbling around doing her best to prove she can hold her own against members of the opposite sex.
The Einstein High junior spends the first third of her day at school before making the short trip over to the Thomas Edison High School of Technology in Wheaton, where she learns the ins and outs of cosmetology with the goal of obtaining her own license in the field next year. Right there, however, is when Westbrook's day stops resembling that of a typical high-school girl.
Westbrook then returns to Einstein where she spends her afternoons fine-tuning her take-down skills as the only female member of the Einstein wrestling team. But don't let her gender fool you. While competing in one of the most difficult weight classes, Westbrook has more than held her own in her first season of organized wrestling. She has compiled a 3-4 record on the junior-varsity squad through last weekend and two of her wins have come by way of pin.
So what would prompt a high-school girl to squeeze into a singlet and stuff herself in a room of sweaty guys every day after school? Several factors, not the least of which being the rough-housing sessions she used to endure with her older brother, John. But aside from that, Westbrook's sincere desire to take part in the challenging sport is what drives her. She was a cheerleader her freshman year but quickly gave that up.
"It was sort of boring because they just sit on the bench and don't do much," she said. "I wanted to do something that was more active. Wrestling is something I've always wanted to do. I used to roll around on the floor with my brother and that definitely toughened me up. That's probably what inspired me to try it. My mom wasn't so sure about it at first, but once she saw that I stuck with it she's been really supportive."
After watching Westbrook participate in a grueling two-hour practice last week, there’s no doubting her commitment to the sport.
Einstein coach Pete Siarkas said Westbrook works just as hard as anyone else on the team during practice and that her teammates show her the same respect they do each other.
"Sometimes she goes out there and gets nailed," Siarkas said of Westbrook, the first female he has coached in seven years of coaching in the county. "But she's tough. She's just like one of the guys. She works hard and she doesn't back down to anybody. It's uncomfortable because guys are supposed to win so they go in timid. But once they see her out there rolling around, then they take her seriously."
Most women don't like to talk about their weight, but Westbrook puts hers on display every day during the wrestling season. She competes in the 140-pound weight class, typically one of the most competitive spots on any wrestling team. While some would think being a female might put her at a disadvantage out on the mat, Westbrook said it actually gives her an edge because some guys are hesitant when they face her. Westbrook wears a swim cap underneath her headgear to hold her hair back, but once she takes the mat her female disposition goes out the window. She's simply a competitor trying to pin and score more points than her opponent.
"Guys are more intimidated which makes it better for me," she said. "They don't know what to expect, so I can show them up since I know the techniques."
Westbrook's practice partner, Robert Jones, agreed but added that training with a female every day has helped sharpen his skills.
"It's just as hard as wrestling a guy, if not harder, because you underestimate her and then she kicks your butt," Jones said. "I've learned not to underestimate people because you won't go as hard as you should and it will cost you."
Westbrook is part of a growing trend in the county. Although only a handful of girls currently participate on local wrestling teams, coaches around the county agree that the sport is slowly but steadily gaining popularity with females. Paint Branch sophomore Morgan Fields competes in the 112-pound weight class for the Panthers' JV team and is the first girl to remain on the team in coach Rick Smith's 10 years at the school. Christina Purdie, a junior at B-CC, returned this season for her second year of wrestling, the second girl to compete in the sport in coach Bobby Bunting's five years at the helm of the Barons.
Both coaches agreed that girls would be much more likely to come out for wrestling if a separate county tournament for girls existed. That way, girls would wrestle girls throughout the season and individual champions could be crowned for each weight class just like in the boys tournament.
"I think it's great that girls want to wrestle," Bunting said. "Can they be as good as guys? Maybe. I’d love to see a girls county, region and state tournament. I think it'd be great for the girls because then they'd be wrestling girls. Now they're mostly wrestling guys and they usually get beat."
Smith echoed similar sentiments, adding that girls wrestling guys sometimes creates a sticky situation.
"When you have guys and girls touching each other, it can be a concern," he said. "It's a difficult situation for a guy to wrestle a girl. There have been more girls wrestling in recent years than ever before, so if the sports keeps picking up popularity then maybe a girls county tournament can happen."
Although a girls tournament would likely generate more female interest in the sport, Montgomery County Sports Director for Wrestling Jim Meehan said there would need to be a significant increase in female participation across the county in order for such an event to be considered. Meehan said that no girls have ever placed in the county championship and that no girls have even qualified for the tournament in at least six years. While Meehan said the creation of a girls tournament is rather unlikely given the current status of female interest, he said the creation of a girls county wrestling championship isn't a complete impossibility.
"It would take some sort of grassroots effort like they did with lacrosse about 10 years ago," Meehan said. "It would probably take about a half-dozen girls participating on each team in the county.
Then maybe that would get the ball rolling in the right direction. A lot of teams can't even fill all their weight classes with guys, so to talk about a girls county tournament is really hypothetical right now."
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