The team in general did a good job today to start the women's competition. As my headline indicates three of our girls went undefeated and will wrestle for Commonwealth Gold tonight. This is gonna sound completely spoiled on my part, so bare with me... It was extremely hard watching Jill Gallays lose in three tough rounds to a very physical Nigerian wrestlers. One of those "man if we could only do that one over" moments. Jill Took the Nigerian down and turned her to win the first round, and from the point forward the Nigeria went on defense almost 100%... The second round ended 0-0 and the nigerian was awarded the clinch and scored. Jill tried to press the action in the third round not wanting to take the chance on another random ball draw. Unfortunately the clamping Nigerian managed to counter an spin behind for a split second and was awarded the point. Jill knowing she needed to wrestle off the bottom stood up and got pushed off from behind for a second point. Jill got a little frustrated from the outset as the Nigerian mostly clamped or blocked out her offensive attempts. The hard part is the way the draw went the indian, nigerian and Jill were all on the same side (the strongest three by far). The nigerian lost her next match vs India (in it she won the first round, and had a standing single on the indian in the zone and failed to score, to win the match)! Jill feels devistated to be elliminated from the tournament! Being a part of our national team brings with it a strong expectation for success. I want to say this, she has a huge amount of potential and I never want any of our team members to be broken by any one defeat. I hope this is a growing moment for her. She did not wrestle poorly at all! Meerly she was unable to break through on a very solid athletic opponent. I suspect this maybe a tactic we will face again tonight in the finals. Everyone of our athletes have faced moments like this in the past year, and in the end responded to become better. Jill will be no different. I know the team feels for her, is proud of her, and knows she has lots more wrestling ahead of her.
Carol, justine, and ohenewa all wrestled like the veterans they are in the morning session. Carol had a really long and awkward nigerian in her opener and kept things clean, and even managed to work on a few technical things we have been trying to improve. Her next match short and sweet and intended to send a clear message asto her readiness vs the indian for tonights final.
Justine hit an explosive double leg in both of her opening matches this morning and that is all it took. She never allowed either of her opponents to get a second chance once she was on their legs! angain this is something we have been trying to emphasize so it is great to see her put the nails in the coffin (so to speak) and pin her opponents in the first round. Tonight she is wrestling a Nigerian athlete (actually much like herself) physical and agressive. I am really looking forward to this match up as it should produce some entertaining scrambles.
Ohenewa also has a very gifted opponent tonight in the Cameroon wrestler (I know what you are thinking... that Cameroon should be an easy match, but she has had a great amount of international success and was in the beijing olympic games). It will be another chance for ohenewa to get into a good match and show off her explosive attacks which have been very impressive so far today.
I am looking forward to all three matches being tough and good tests for our girls! CBC was there at the venue this morning and will be on hand at the finals tonight (as well as a number of Canadian team supports and staff). It should be fun! I hope you get to see it first hand back home.
We are going to chill for a bit this afternoon, and then I will take a bus over with the athletes back to the venue (Jessie, Tonya, and Megan are ready to weigh in). After the weigh in we will do our best to get that Canadian Athem playing on the speakers at the Arena!!! ;)
Wish us luck...
Thanks for checkin in...
Coach Vierling
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