Athletes and coaches from the Waterside Sharks Takedown Club travelled to Wales on Saturday to represent the city at the Welsh Open Wrestling Championships 2017.

This tournament was considered by the coaches to be a step up in levels from recent local events and after much deliberation it was decided that Ben Pollin and Dominic McKay were able to handle the rigors and demands of the day.
The event itself was held in the Plas Madoc Leisure Centre, Wrexham on Sunday past and international teams from Romania, Lithuania and Malta were in attendance. Indeed, with wrestlers from all the Home Nations and Ireland taking part, the competition was every bit as intense as predicted; our athletes had to be on top of their game.
In addition, the event was an important test for those hoping to be selected for the XXI Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia (next April) and played an important role in assessing the state of readiness for many wrestlers ahead of the first qualification tournament i.e. the English Senior Championships, in four weeks’ time.
Jim Toland, Northern Ireland Wrestling Association Pathways Officer, said “I took Ben along because a wanted to test his skills against older and bigger athletes, Ben has just turned 17 years but I was confident that he could do well in the under 21 years category”. In fact, Ben did not disappoint winning the junior section with relative ease; beating his Welsh opponent in the junior final by a margin of 10:0 commonly known as technical superiority.
A more difficult decision was made on the day when the coaches took a calculated risk by entering Ben in the senior under 125 kgs category which contained some of the strongest wrestlers in the competition.
Once again Ben disposed of his first two opponents without difficulty, winning his matches by pinning both in less than four minutes. These results sent Ben through to the senior final against a tough Romanian athlete and as they stood facing each other at the beginning of the bout it was clear that Ben was giving away approximately 10 kgs in weight.
However, the game plan was to stay on the move and frustrate the opponent before taking points off him as he began to run out of stream. To a degree the plan remained intact but as Jim Toland describes, “Ben worked hard in the gym over Christmas and it paid dividends, to my pleasant surprise he was able to match the Romanian head on and never took a backward step, in fact, the referee had to separate them on several occasions as levels of aggression ramped up”.
Ben eventually won the senior event without losing a point and the Northern Ireland Wrestling Association will confirm that such a high level of performance has never been recorded from an athlete so young; checking with Tom Hardy spokesman for the organisation, he said, “No local athlete has ever won a senior event on the mainland at the age 17 years, the future is going to be extremely interesting for Ben”.
The good news continued for the Waterside Sharks Takedown Club with Dominic also pulling in a Gold medal from the schoolboy age category. Jim Toland said, “If Dominic continues to work hard I predict a bright future for him too however we’re only at the start of the journey”.
The athletes have a busy schedule ahead of them and Ben Pollin will be representing Great Britain at the 1st V Feidenfelds Cup, Riga, Latvia on the 25 February whilst Dominic McKay can look forward to Cavan Junior Championships, Ireland that same weekend.
Ben Pollin is the current Young Sports Star of the Year for Derry City and Strabane District Council area and is assisted by the Council, Sport NI and the Mary Peters Trust.
Further details of how to become involved in the sport can be obtained from the following web site www.niwrestling.org and Waterside Sharks Takedown Club will accept new members at their class in Foyle Arena on Friday evening from 7:30 pm

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