Young combatants prepare for nationals

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This article was published 09/04/2018 (2978 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Members of Winnipeg’s Schewa Wrestling Club were just finishing their two-hour workout at the St. Paul’s High School multiplex last week.

While several paused to rehydrate, the rest laid back on the mats — utterly spent. They were exhausted.

That’s been the routine lately for the ridiculously fit teenagers at Schewa, who have been putting the finishing touches on their training and preparations for the U17/U19 Canadian Wrestling Championships in Edmonton this weekend.

Overseeing it all is Kris Stasiak, a 60-year-old who has been competing in and coaching the sport in Manitoba since leaving his native Poland in 1977.

Stasiak, to be honest, seems old-school at first. He is demanding, no question.

“When you push them they will work hard and they understand it’s (important) with only a few practices left before nationals,” he says when asked if his athletes are hard workers.

“(We practise) three times a week. I would like to coach four or five times a week but because of facility availability, unfortunately we’ve only got three times and on Sunday (assistant coach) Mohammad (Aldrar) takes them to Sport Manitoba for some physical training, conditioning and stuff like that.”

Behind the gruff exterior, Stasiak has a nurturing side that has earned the respect of his athletes.

“It’s pretty funny because he’s kind of a hard ass, but off the mat he’s a teddy bear,” says Kyle Steeves, a 17-year-old St. Paul’s student who hopes to follow up a fifth-place result at last year’s nationals with an improved finish in Edmonton. “I’ve been coached by Kris for three years. At first, it was kind of difficult to adjust to, but over the years, as you get to know him more, you know which buttons to push.

“I like to think I’m a funny guy and so before practice I’ll go up to Kris and ask him how his day is, kind of give him a funny handshake — something like that. That lightens him up.”

Steeves, who moonlights as a prop on the provincial rugby team, is serious about bringing home some hardware from nationals. He competes in the 110-kilogram division and finished fourth at the recent Canada Summer Games in a weight class 10 kilograms above his normal weight.

Another medal contender, Jayden Ramgotra, isn’t put off by Stasiak’s demanding training methods.

“Honestly, I like his style of coaching,” says Ramgotra, a 16-year-old Grade 10 student at West Kildonan Collegiate who followed her older brother Justin into the sport. “I’ve always been able to respond to it because it’s harder. It makes me want to do better and not let him down.”

Sam Pereira, a 14-year-old from St. Paul’s in his second year of wrestling and already a contender for a medal in his first trip to nationals, has found something in the sport he couldn’t find in hockey — camaraderie and a sense of community with his teammates. He wrestled and played AA hockey last year but opted to concentrate on the grappling arts in Year 2.

And it’s paying off.

“I saw a real future for me in wrestling, and hockey wasn’t really doing that for me,” Pereira says. “I was good at it from the start and I kept improving. I got better at wrestling than I did in hockey.”

Spurring his development was his regular training partner Khaled Aldrar, who arrived as a refugee in Winnipeg with his family from Syria in December 2016. Aldrar, who has an extensive background in wrestling (his father was a member of Syria’s national team coaching staff), has pushed Pereira to excel.

“When I started training with him it wwas a very tough challenge for me but now, with him being that competitive and that good, it made me work harder to keep up with him,” says Pereira, who lost the gold-medal match to Aldrar at this year’s provincial high school championships.

Aldrar, in Grade 12 at Dakota Collegiate, is a top medal hope for the Manitoba after earning a silver medal in the 52-kilogram division at the Canada Summer Games.

Here’s another thing about Schewa — wrestling can be an equal-opportunity sport. Five of the 12 Schewa wrestlers heading to nationals are girls.

“I feel like people are always surprised that I could be wrestling,” Ramgotra says. “I don’t think they think I’m aggressive or they think I’m strong enough. But I think it’s completely equal. Everyone can do the same thing.”

Ramgotra was a silver medallist at last year’s nationals and she has ambitions for gold in the 69-kilogram weight class this time around.

Competition in freestyle events begins Friday in Edmonton. Some of the Manitobans will also compete in Sunday’s Greco-Roman discipline, although this style forbids holds below the waist and is not widely popular in Canada.

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @sawa14