NZ Wrestling member and International Referee Brian Stannett demonstrates the rules to the wrestlers prior to the tournament

Wrestling has returned to the King Country for the first time in 20 years.   The club started in March 2011 in the Taumarunui High School hall, they have since  moved to the Athletic Sports Centre in Taumarunui , obtained a wrestling mat and now train  on Tuesday and Thursdays from 3-5pm says founder and coach Theo Ferreira.

Theo has primary school , intermediate and high-school athletes training at the moment, he is looking for  more seniors to start  this fantastic sport.

The first King Country Inter-school Wrestling Tournament was held on Friday 23 March in Taumarunui .  Seven Schools  entered with 42 participating wrestling. Every wrestler received a certificate for participating .  We had 34 medal winners and a rotating Cup for the winning School.

The results as Follows:
Ngakonui Valley 7th Place
Tarrangower Primary 6th Place
Katikati School 5th Place
Ngapuke School 4th Place
Turaki School 3rd Place
Manunui Primary 2nd Place
and with a unanimous decision Taumarunui Primary 1st Place winners of the 2012 Ruapehu Interschool Wrestling Cup.  They are the school to beat in next years Interschool Wrestling Tournament of 2013.

www.sportsground.co.nz/kcwc

King Country Wrestling Interschool 2012 results

Category: U10 yrs

Weight: 24 kg

1^st Tui Te Wiki – Manunui Primary

2^nd Bradley Tocker – Ngakonui Valley Primary

3^rd Tamati Butter – Ngapuke Primary

Weight: 28 kg

1^st Michael Rato – Manunui Primary

2^nd Josiah Bull – Manunui Primary

3^rd Ayannah Bull – Manunui Primary

4^th Seth Hamilton – Manunui Primary

Weight: 33kg

1^st Jack Herewini – Taumarunui Primary

2^nd Rawiri Butter – Ngapuke Primary

3^rd Dustin Elwin – Turaki Primary

4^th Kaine Hamilton – Manunui Primary

Weight: 39 kg

1^st Josh McClean – Katikati

2^nd Jone Rova – Tarrangower Primary

3^rd Alex Bowick – Turaki Primary

4^th Simone Munro – Taumarunui Primary

Weight: 65 kg

1^st Rangi Woods – Taumarunui Primary

Category: 10-13 yrs

Weight: 38 kg

1^st Wesley Ferreira – Turaki Primary

2^nd Todd Jacobs – Turaki Primary

3^rd Jivashen Naidoo – Turaki Primary

4^th Moko Mark – Taumarunui Primary

Weight: 42a Kg

1^st Tyrone Pakau – Taumarunui Primary

2^nd Piripi Gotty – Taumarunui Primary

3^rd Riviannah Te Ahuru – Manunui Primary

4^th William Glennie – Turaki Primary

Weight: 42b kg

1^st Stacey Toataua – Taumarunui Primary

2^nd Isabella Konui – Taumarunui Primary

3^rd Analicia Harris – Taumarunui Primary

Weight: 53 kg

1^st Rawiri George – Taumarunui Primary

2^nd Cole Bolten – Turaki Primary

3^rd Sativa Brown – Taumarunui Primary

4^th Ingrid Herbert – Taumarunui Primary

Weight: 59 kg

1^st Sonya Lambert – Katikati

2^nd Matene Takarangi – Ngapuke Primary

3^rd Green Thornton – Ngapuke Primary

4^th Raemana Wi – Taumarunui Primary

Weight: 66 kg

1^st Corbett Rakaupi – Ngapuke Primary

2^nd David Bull – Taumarunui Primary

Weight: 73-85 kg

1^st Oriwia Wanakore – Taumarunui Primary

2^nd Elijah Pokai – Taumarunui Primary

Weight: 90+

1^st Andrew Le Quensne – Manunui Primary

London Olympic hopeful Marcus Carney  (120kg) from the Dilworth Wrestling club in Auckland has taken the next step on the road to selection for the London Olympics.   He left NZ last week for California en route to the final Olympic qualifying event in Morocco.   Marcus has enjoyed his build up and training thanks to some very good friends of NZ Wrestling in California.

Marcus has been training with former World Champ (also FILA Best Wrestler in the World & former Patriots NFL player) Stephen Neal, plus current heavyweights on the Cal State-Bakersfield Div 1 Wrestling team.  The training Marcus is doing is giving him valuable experience and exposure to some excellent coaching and training partners leading up to the qualifier in Morocco.

Fellow Dilworth club mate Faisal Attayee (84kg) & NZ coach Mark Grayling (Mt Maunganui) will join him in Marrakech Morocco next week.

NZ Wrestling would like to wish them well with their build up and competition.

Sadly, Clinton Davies’ (74kg) and Tayla Ford (63kg female) both picked up untimely injury’s meaning they will be unavailable for selection, but we know they will both be back on the mat in no time and aiming for international honours again.

Marcus (right) with Stephen Abas, Olympic Silver Medalist and 3xNCAA Champion at the 2012 California State Championships

2011 has been a great season for Wrestling New Zealand. It has been a season marked by the working together in harmony of clubs around the country, unhindered by personal agendas, with everyone striving for the betterment of all.

It has also been a busy season. There have been over 20 wrestling tournaments under the WNZ banner, 5 events for grapplers  and even one Greco-Roman only tournament. The tournaments have been supplemented by 3 training camps and 2 highly successful Wrestling for Grapplers clinics.

Providing competition and opportunities for further development and experience are essential elements of any responsible organisation, and WNZ has not been idle here either.  Our talented athletes were given numerous opportunities to travel and compete during 2011. We sent teams to the Oceania Championships in Samoa, the DownUnder tournament on the Gold Coast, the Junior World Championships in Romania, the Commonwealth Championships in Melbourne and the Australia Cup International Tournament, also in Melbourne.  In addition, the Australia Cup was preceded by an international training camp with world-class clinicians.

Many of our athletes were also able to benefit from the tour to New Zealand of the Indiana Cultural Exchange Team. This excellent group of young men took part in club trainings, dual meets and one tournament.

The latter part of 2011 has seen the foundations laid for an equally busy season in 2012. Not only is a Wrestling team in training for the Oceania Championships in Sydney late January, but our first ever New Zealand FILA Grappling team will be taking part in the same event.

There are also plans underway for more teams to tour overseas. A New Zealand Cultural Exchange team is going to Indiana and Oregon in April, and the DownUnder team will again tour to the Gold Coast in July.

Arriving on our shores in late July will be a Cultural Exchange team from Southern California for a series of combined trainings, dual meets and tournaments. It is also very likely that we will benefit from a visit by a Wyoming Cultural Exchange team in June.

In 2012 we intend to build on our links with the country’s grappling fraternity to our mutual benefit. We will expand our Wrestling for Grapplers clinics to areas outside of the Auckland and Wellington regions (3 have already been planned for Wellington), and have established an exciting new partnership with New Zealand Grappler ( http://nzgrappler.co.nz ). New Zealand Grappler ran the largest Grappling event in the country in 2011, with their No-Gi Nationals drawing 232 entries. The working together with NZ Grappler should provide increased opportunities for both grapplers and wrestlers.

2012 is looking like another busy and fruitful year and we are looking forward to it.

A second successful training camp for wrestlers attending the Oceania Champs in Sydney in January was held at Rosehill on 18th December 2011 .

Team coaches Mark Grayling, Darcy Dunlop and Ross Tanner were joined by guest clinicians Andrei Paulet (NZ rep) and Amir Bahrami (former Iranian National Junior Champ).  The coaching staff were very pleased with the  attitude and commitment of all athletes who attended the camp.

The third and final camp will be held in the week before departure

The NZ Grappling Team for the Sydney Oceania Wrestling and Grappling Championships 27-29 January 2012 has been selected. The team was selected from the best aggregated results from the Nationals, North Island Championships, 03-The Trials, and where a division was not fully competitive, 01-Roll for Christchurch.

We appreciate that not all of NZ’s Grapplers attended these events but I’m sure that most will agree that this is the start of fantastic opportunities for our sport and that most of you won’t miss out on the opportunity to qualify next year! The team will members will be having to cover the travel costs themselves, but if you wish to make a donation or become a sponsor please deposit into Combat Sports Central: 03 1521 0216629 000 with “NZ Team”. If I could ask that you  forward this donation request others in the grappling community to help your team as much as possible. Allocation of the funds will be decided by the entire team at a formal training session.