Mat marvel
Dingwall wrestler comes home with bronze medal from nationals in Edmonton
He may not have many training partners to help sharpen his skills on the mat, but Eamonn Dudley-Chubbs continues to reach new heights in the sport of wrestling.
The 15-year-old from Dingwall is a member of the Cape Breton Highlands Wrestling Club and the Cabot Education Centre wrestling team. He trains as a member of the small club with his father, head coach Tommy Chubbs, and fellow club member Jade Wilkie, 17, of Cape North, an accomplished wrestler in her own right who represented Nova Scotia at the 2017 Canada Summer Games in Winnipeg and has competed at nationals.
Despite that hurdle, DudleyChubbs reached the podium at the Canadian wrestling championships over the weekend at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, taking home a bronze medal. He competed in the 65 kg division that included 22 wrestlers from across Canada and finished with a 4-1 record.
“It feels good. The hard work paid off and it was a good trip there,” said Dudley-Chubbs, who trains six days a week. He was forced to withdraw from the semifinal round at last year’s nationals in Windsor, Ont., due to a shoulder injury.
“You get the best people there, but you have to think you train harder than your opponents and that’s how you win.”
Dudley-Chubbs and his coach/father have hit the road in search of training opportunities. He’s competed at a number of tournaments in Ontario and last summer, they made numerous stops at tournaments
and clinics across the eastern and midwestern United States. In 2016, he won gold at the Canada East championship in Pierrefonds, Que.
He has another opportunity to get some high-level training next month. Dudley-Chubbs will attend an international event in Lake Placid, N.Y., and will travel with a team from Ontario to the event.
“When I go to camps, I get opportunities to train with other wrestlers and I know I get a lot better from that,” he said. “That kind of shows me the opportunity I would have if there was a team around me of people to train with.”
Coach Chubbs said his son’s results are a result of the work he’s put into the sport.
“He could quite possibly be the first national medalist to not have a team,” said Tommy, a former provincial and Atlantic wrestling champion who got his start in the sport under coaches Joe MacNeil and the late Marvin Harvey at Cabot.
“He’s the only male senior on our team, but he’s put a lot of hours in sparring with me and in a way, that’s almost an advantage, too, because I know what he needs to work on specifically. In another way, it’s a disadvantage, because we get so used to the way we wrestle.
“Every time he goes to a camp, he’s exposed to other wrestlers, too. He does do a lot of camps, plus both he and Jade are on the provincial team this year. There’s six on the team and we get together with them and train as much as we can, but they’re still in Halifax and I think we’ve had three camps since January. But when we do get together, they help him out quite a bit because we have three guys who are within five kilos of his weight and they’re also dedicated kids and talented kids, too.”
As for his future in the sport, Dudley-Chubbs hopes to make the Canadian team to compete at the world championship and someday qualify for the Olympics.
“I know that every second more that I train than my opponent, that’s the reason I can beat them and win,” he said.