Pye no longer just another wrestler
At the conclusion of the Olympic wrestling trials Saturday night, Clayton Pye looked like he had gone 10 tough rounds with Mike Tyson.
The Brock Wrestling Club member had a cut under both of his eyes, a goose egg over his left eye, a smashed and scraped up forehead and countless other nicks and dings too numerous to catalogue.
Below his left eye looked particularly gruesome as medical personnel at the trials used silver nitrate to cauterize a nasty cut suffered in the first round of his three-round war with Alex Brown-Theriault of the Carleton Wrestling Club.
“They told me it was supposed to hurt a lot, but I didn’t really notice it,” he said, with a smile. “I was pretty pumped up. He gave me that first head butt, I started bleeding and when I saw my own blood I got a little fired up and I was ready to wrestle after that.
Brown-Theriault didn’t escape unscathed. He came out of the second round of the match bleeding profusely on the top of his head.
“He smashed his head open on my face,” Pye said, with a laugh.
In end, all the pain and the bloodshed was worth it as the 24-year-old native of Ingersoll emerged with a 2-1 victory and a spot in the 2020 Pan-American Olympic Qualification Tournament March 13-15 In Ottawa. The four-time Canadian university champion won the first round 15-4, lost the second 9-2 and captured the third round with a convincing 13-2 triumph.
“It feels great and it’s a dream come true,” Pye said. “I have been at Brock training for this for a lot of years and I’m finally getting carded and finally getting recognized.
“I am not just another wrestler in the mix.”
He has never shone before at the national level.
“I’ve not done very well to be honest,” he said. “I won a silver medal at the Canada Summer Games back when I was 18 and since then I have had real bad luck at nationals.”
His bad luck took many forms.
“I just don’t seem to show up, I get nervous, sick or broken or something,” Pye said. “It was nice to come here, have it in my hometown and be ready and prepared for everything.”
Competing at the Scotiabank Convention Centre in Niagara Falls, everything seemed to go his way.
“Everything went right, even the breaks that I would take,” he said. “I would take a quick nap and wake up and feel energized. Other times that doesn’t work out because you wake up and you feel sluggish.
“My nutrition was good, I wasn’t sick and I had no serious injuries that I was battling with. I am pretty injury prone and I have had my fair share of adversity with fighting through injuries.”
Adversity has been a constant throughout his wrestling career.
“Obviously that aided me today with my face getting bashed up,” Pye said. “I have had a lot of adversity with injuries and I have always showed up for my team. I love Brock University and from Day 1 I have been wrestling just to get points for the team. If I didn’t have them behind me, I wouldn’t feel this way.”
Pye mentioned the contributions of his coaches, friends and training partners. Head coach Marty Calder was at the top his list of contributors.
“He is almost like another father to me and my dad always says the same thing to me too,” he said. “My dad said he gets me fired up the same way he does and he sees a lot of similarities in the way I look at him and the way I look at Marty.
“And the same goes for (Chris) Prickett and Dave (Collie). They are terrific coaches.”
Calder was thrilled with Pye’s weekend.
“What a performance. He beat a guy in the semis who he had never beaten before and he is a guy who surprises you all the time,” he said. “He has so much heart.”
