Thursday December 3rd, 2015
Quebec athletes left yesterday to compete at the Olympic Trials to determine who may represent Canada at upcoming Olympic Games in Rio De Janeiro Brazil this summer. The following athletes will be representing their respective clubs and we wish them the best of luck in this difficult endeavour.
Competing for spots on the Men’s Team, James Manicini, Scott Schiller, Cleo Ncube, Jordie Steen, Ali Al Rekabi and Yakdan Al Rekabi will be our representatives from the Montreal YMHA while Matt Miller from TWA will also compete.
Trying to qualify for the Women’s Team, Linda Morais and Veronica Keefe will represent the Montreal YMHA while Dory Yeats will represent TWA at the Olympic Trials.
Ali Al Rekabi
Dory Yeats
Photo Credit: Fondation de l’athlète d’excellence du Québec
Rounding out the competitors for the weekend, John Yeats of TWA is Quebec's lone Greco Roman representative and will try to qualify his weight for the upcoming Olympics. For more information on the Canadian Olympic Trials, click here.
First and foremost, congratulations must go out to each one of these athletes as competing at the Canadian Olympic Trials represents a lifetime of hard work and commitment. Winning the trials doesn't guarantee a spot at the games, as the process to qualify is very difficult.
Let's try and put this into perspective about the difficulty to even qualify for the Olympic Games. Wrestling is one of the most widely practiced sports around the world, with the World Championships fielding approximately ninety-five countries from every continent in the world. Weight categories can feature up to fifty athletes each and a single loss usually means elimination from the tournament. There are eight weight categories for all three wrestling styles (Freestyle, Greco-Roman and Women’s).
Competitors who lose to one of the four semi-finalists are grouped into a smaller pool to wrestle off for two Bronze medals. The losers of the semi-finals are also thrown into this smaller pool, known as the repechage. All this happens within the course of one day. Those medal winners will automatically qualify their weights for the Olympics.
Each country has the right to send their respective National Champion to the World Championships, which can make each weight category quite large. However with the Olympics, this isn't the case. First of all, the number of weight categories is reduced as each style only has six weight divisions. This means that anyone who would have wrestled in a Non-Olympic weight would have to qualify again. Also the number of competitors is drastically reduced, as the there are only twenty spots available. Eliminate five spots from that twenty as the medal winners from the previous year's World Championships and the host country are all guaranteed spots. To qualify for the remaining spots is almost like a dogfight itself.
The remaining athletes have one of two ways to make their way to the Olympic games. The first is a series of qualifying tournaments held around the world. Athletes who win or place in the top spots get points and at the end of the qualifying tournaments, the top athletes with the most points will qualify. Athletes who didn't accumulate enough points but that have still competed can qualify in the following way, which would be to win your region in a tournament (Pan-American, European, Pan-Asian, African etc.)
Having trained all my competitive life to try to make an Olympic Games, I understand the hard work and sacrifice that is involved. The Olympics represent the pinnacle of an amateur athlete's career and not a day goes by that I', not thankful for the opportunity to compete in this fabulous sport. Therefore, it's with the utmost enthusiasm that I wish all our athletes "Good Luck" at the Trials and make Quebec proud!
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