Wrestling Today
Present Thoughts
by Kevan Mclaughlan
NZ Wrestling is to make a determined effort to upskill its wrestlers to be competitive internationally. 2002 saw the re emergence of a Junior programme, a small team visited USA, the UK & Switzerland for training & competition. It was extremely successful & provided a template for further tours
Wrestlers do have to tour overseas to gain experience. Wrestling is ranked 7th in number of participants in sports in the world. Eastern Europe, Asia and USA have huge numbers involved in the sport.
The former Soviet Union had 12 million registered wrestlers. California USA have 2000 high schools with wrestling teams. Iran has more wrestlers than there are rugby players in the world.
In June 2005 a large junior squad up to 30 wrestlers toured the USA. The Senior development team travelled to Russia, then Cape Town, South Africa. While the Secondary Schools sent a full team to Austraila.( See below)
In 2006, 2 seniors hope to live in Russia for 6mths training & to build experience for the World Champs & Olympic. Wrestlers will not achieve international success by staying in NZ.
Wrestling NZ is seeking female competitors, they competed in the Olympics for the first time this year. Japan, China & USA stood out. We have many young females & want to attract Juniors (17-20) & seniors (21+).
The web site at https://www.olympicwrestling.org.nz/ is shortly to have a major revamp – keep an eye on it!
Senior tour – June 2005
First stop was Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, Russia This is area has produced more world & Olympic champions than any other area in the world. The gym we trained at, Alania. Each session the team could train with World, Olympic, European & Russian Champions. The club had 20 paid coaches & 60 or so athletes are paid to train.
They train twice a day Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, with a mountain run on Wednesday / Saturday. No weight training facilities & they utilize hanging ropes & are building a swimming pool. The standard of wrestling is higher than any NZ Club. Their club coaches said our team, in 2 weeks improved by 30%.
The team then spent a week in London, trained & competed with local London& skilled immigrants wrestlers.
Cape Town for a 2 week stay at Stellenbosch normally known for rugby. Here the team competed in the Commonwealth Champs without winning any medals. Rodney Jarman & Stephen Hill had some very close matches, but match experience counted. The benefit of this tournament came through in the next tournament – The South African Centenary Cup. Stephen Hill gained silver medals in the Freestyle and Greco.
They had a Freestyle/ Greco-Roman coaching by 2 top world exponents over3 days. Essentially to expose our young seniors to international competition & top level wrestling training. Relationships have now been established in North Ossetia and we may be able to send individuals to train there for extended periods but they must be able to put up with isolation and a lack of English.
The team:Coach: Kevan McLaughlan, Manager: Gordon Hill. Wrestlers: Stephen Hill, Rodney Jarman -Asst Coach
Jamie Kerr, Mark Hogarth, Tim Stewart & Konstantin Sattsaev
Cadets at Down Under Tournament Australia
by Daryl Druitt
The 2005 Down Unders was a very good tournament although the first day, when the individual tournament was run, we were blown away by the toughness of the competition. Even the boys who had been to the States were struggling. However the boys bounced back with a vegence on the second tournament day when the team competitions were run. They lifted their wrestling to another level.
We found we were very competitive against most of the teams & were comfortably ahead of Australia, beat the Colorado/Texas team and came within a few points of beating the team from Wisconsin area. We have a little ways to go before we beat a top team like the one from Penn State however but there is no doubt that with a little extra work we can go to this tournament and be very competitive. It will take that extra effort however. Hopefully we will be able to take two next year.
NZ RANKINGS AT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP’S
Male-Seniors
6 HENRY HUBBER 1970
9 STEVE REINSFIELD
10 KEN REINSFIELD
11 NIGEL SARGENT
11 JOHN ANDREW
12 ROBERT ALGIE
13 BRENT HOLLAMBY
13 MURRAY SHORE
13 GRAEME HAWKINS
14 CHRIS MADDOCK
14 ZANE COLEMAN
14 SHANE STANNET
17 TONY GOODRICK
25 MARTIN LIDDLE
26 AARON QUINLAN
31 TONY VINCENT
STEPHEN BELL
IVANO RUTTEN
TRENT SCOTT
CHRIS QUINLAN
GRANT PARKER
GAVIN AVERY
WAYNE WRATHALL
NEVILLE CLARKE
LEONARD CHURCH
DEVON BOND
1954 J.McCREADY
TEAM J.GENET
BERT
J.ARMITT
K.RUBY
A.HOLLANDER
J.MONAGHAN
Female
ROBINA HILL 1993
9 SIAN LAW
10 J. McGREGOR 2003
16 G.ROXBURGH 2001
OLYMPIC GAMES
1956 J.W Silva Akld
1960 F.A.Thomas Wgtn
1964 A.G.Greig Wgtn
1964 A.R.Meehan Akld
1972 D.A.Aspin Akld
1976 D.A.Aspin Akld
1976 B.M.OldridgeRot
1984 K.Reinsfield Akld
1984 G.Hawkins Wgtn
1992 Grant Parker Fthtn
1992 S.Stannet Waik
2000 M.Liddle Akld
2000 R. Amani Akld
2000 J.Pellew Waik
WEIGHT DIVISIONS
2kg Flyweight
57kg Bantamwt
62kg Featherwt
68kg Lightwt
74kg Welterwt
82kg Middlewt
90kg Lt-Hvywt
100 Heavywt
British Empire (1938-70) & Commonwealth (1974-2005) Games (CG)
1938 BRITISH EMPIRE GAMES – SYDNEY
LEO NOLAN 57KG
BRONZE JOSEPH GENET 62KG
SILVER VERNON THOMAS 68KG
BRONZE JERIMIAH PODJURSKY 74KG HARCOURT GODFREY 82KG
TOSRSTON ANDERSON 90KG
SILVER JAMES DRYDEN 100
1950 BRITISH EMPIRE GAMES – AUCKLAND
SILVER ERIC MATTHEWS 52KG
GOLD DOUG MUDGEWAY 57KG
GOLD JOHN ARMITT 62KG
BRONZE GORDON HOBSON 68KG
J MONOGHAN 74KG
PETER FLETCHER 82KG
SILVER ARTHUR SNEDDEN 90KG
SILVER PAT O’CONNOR 100
1954 BRITISH EMPIRE GAMES – VANCOUVER
KEN RUBY
57KG
BRONZE JOHN ARMITT 62KG
Brighter Amateur Wrestling is the aim for 1951
Ak Wrestling Review
AKLds defeat at the 1950 NZ Champs was far from rout.The high hopes were not entirely unwarranted but local supporters did not reckon on the fact that the standard of amateur wrestling in NZ has reached a level undreamed of a few years ago. Akld star was Roy Merriott who wrestled brilliantly agst strong opposition to win Akld’s 1st fly-weight title.1950 is history &Akld will hard to regain wrestling premeiership.
1958 BRITISH EMPIRE GAMES – CARDIFF
B BOGNUDA 62KG
GORDON HOBSON 74KG
BARRY COURTNEY 82KG
JOHN SILVA 100
1962 BRITISH EMPIRE GAMES- PERTH
BRONZE W.NISBET 52KG
I.ROBERTS 62KG
BARRY COURTNEY 74KG
BRONZE FRED THOMAS 82KG
1966 BRITISH EMPIRE GAMES – KINGSTON, JAMAICA
N.SCOTT 62KG
BRONZE ANTHONY GREIG 68KG
1970 BRITISH EMPIRE GAMES – EDINBURGH
BRONZE GORDON Mc
KAY 74KG
BRONZE DAVE ASPIN 82KG
HENRY HUBBER 100
A.MILAT 100+
1974 COMMONWEALTH GAMES – CHRISTCHURCH, NZ
Mngr K.Scott. Coach B.Stanett
BRUCE McMAHON 52KG
BARRY OLDRIDGE 57KG
ANDREW ROCHE 62KG
PAUL DALLEY 68KG
BRONZE GORDON McKAY 74KG
GOLD DAVE ASPIN 82KG
JIM DOWNEY 90KG
BRONZE GARY KNIGHT 100+
1978 COMMONWEALTH GAMES – EDMONTON
B.OLDRIDGE 57KG
RAY KATTING 62KG
KEN REINSFIELD 68KG
STEPHEN ROBINSON74KG
ROBERT HOFFMAN 82KG
NIGEL SARGENT 90KG
BRONZE MURRAY AVERY 100
1982 COMMONWEALTH GAMES – BRISBANE
SILVER STEVE REINSFIELD 48KG
GRAEME HAWKINS 52KG
BRONZE CHRIS MADDOCK 57KG
TONY GOODRICH 62KG
SILVER KEN REINSFIELD 74KG
BRONZE NIGEL SARGENT 90KG
1986 COMMONWEALTH GAMES – EDINBURGH
SHANE STANNET 52KG
SILVER STEVE REINSFIELD 57KG
SILVER STEVE BELL 62KG
SILVER ROBERT ALGIE 100kg
1994 COMMONWEALTH GAMES – VICTORIA
SHANE STANNET 57KG
STEVE BELL 62KG
CHRIS QUINLAN 68KG
JOHN ANDREW 82KG
2002 COMMONWEALTH GAMES – SYDNEY
MARTIN LIDDLE 55KG
NICK DALY 84KG
RICARDO ARYAN
