Brock wrestlers begin Olympic quest
Br0ck Wrestling Club member Olivia Di Bacco is the top-seeded wrestler in the women’s 68-kilogram division at this week’s Olympic trials in Edmonton.
Brock Wrestling Club members’ quests to represent Canada at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, begin this week at the Canadian Olympic trials at the Saville Centre in Edmonton.
Brock has a number of wrestlers seeded in the top three and several others who will try to advance out of pool competition to get a crack at the top seeds.
The pool competition starts Dec. 15 and a random draw is used to determine the brackets in the single elimination event. The winner of the pool faces the third seed with the victor moving on to face the second seed. The winner of that match challenges No. 1 ranked wrestler in the finals on Dec. 16 in a best-of-three match. Seeding was based on results from the 2023 Canadian Senior Wrestling Championships.
Winners at the Canadian Olympic trials will have work to do. They still must qualify their respective weight classes internationally to earn their spot in Paris. Their first chance will come at the Pan-American Olympic Qualifier Feb. 28 to March 1 in Acapulco, Mexico. If they are unsuccessful there, there is one last chance at the World Olympic Qualifier May 9-12 in Istanbul, Turkey. The wrestling event at the Olympics will be staged Aug. 5-11.
Brock Wrestling Club members ranked No. 1 are Hannah Taylor at 57 kilograms and Olivia Di Bacco at 68 kilograms. Ranked second are Diana Weicker (53 kilograms) and Shauna Kuebeck (76 kilograms) while ranked third are Mia Friesen (57 kilograms) and Brianna Fraser (76 kilograms).
Among the Brock Wrestling Club members looking to advance out of pool play and challenge the top seeds are: Jessica Tillmanns (62 kilograms); Garette Saunders (57 kilograms), Chance Nutuku, Bobby Narwal and Nick Rowe (74 kilograms); Ignatius Pitt (86 kilograms); Sarabnoor Lally (97 kilograms); and, Richard DesChatelets Jr. and Roger Li (125 kilograms).
“We expect to do well. The kids look really good and they have trained hard and put a lot of time into it,” Brock Wrestling Club head coach Marty Calder said. “I am sure by the end of it that we will be more than happy with the results we get.”
He is excited for his athletes.
“First of all, it is a privilege to wrestle in it. I think they all acknowledge that but there’s also a certain level of anxiety, stress, hope and all the rest of that stuff involved in these because they mean so much.”
Preparations for Olympic Trials are much different compared to most of the other meets.
“We train all year for a couple of events. We arrange our schedule around a few tournaments a year depending on who is. It might be three or four throughput the year.”
Winning the trials is not easy, especially trying to come out of pool play to get into competition against the top seeds.
“It’s a challenge, for sure, but not an impossible task. The hardest challenge is to run the table and go from the pool all the way to No. 1. By the time you get to No. 1, you have to wrestle a two out of three,” Calder said. “But we are here for other things too: personal growth and making some strides in their own games. We are not necessarily looking at overall victories. We are looking for whatever wins we can manage over the weekend, For some people, it is winning the tournament and for some people it’s winning a match. It’s a tough level and you are not going to get wins for free here, that’s for sure.”
