Tawa Tigers roar to wrestling golds
‘‘The idea was to bring them over here so we could learn more and to get some more international experience.’’
Tawa Tigers Wrestling Club have proved they are worth their weight in gold.
Manav Khullar, Ben Florence and Hunny Tehlan each won gold at the senior wrestling champs in Hamilton in August. Khullar, 27, also won the coveted Most Scientific award.
Coach Scott Laurenson said it was a great result and praised Khullar on his award win.
The current New Zealand champion in his weight class in both freestyle and greco, Khullar was a professional and that shone through his performance.
Winning gold in the 125kg class, Khullar won all four bouts with no points scored against him.
‘‘He won Laurenson said .
Florence, 30, had also performed well - a relative newcomer with a lot of contact sport experience, this was his first competition in freestyle.
‘‘He’s been really good this quite easily,’’ season at picking up on freestyle,’’ Laurenson said .
He credited the club’s success to top coaches with Olympic and Commonwealth Games experience. ‘‘We are lucky to have these people on board.’’
Experienced coaching staff and the recently established Wellington wrestling academy at the club’s Linden premises, were lifting the standard and profile of wrestling in the region.
‘‘It’s quite expensive to run so we are trying to attract some sponsors,’’ he said.
Khullar and brother Akash came to New Zealand from India last year to coach at the club and the results were speaking for themselves.
‘‘The idea was to bring them over here so we could learn more and to get some more international experience,’’ Laurenson said.
Khullar said his win was the result of hard work and lots of training.
‘‘I have been training four hours, morning and night since February,’’ he said.
The club was now preparing for the national champs in September.
Former Olympic wrestler and coach Graeme Hawkins said it was good to see the guys perform well and support each other at the senior champs.
‘‘The club champs are a buildup for the nationals, and hopefully we can get some reasonable results,’’ he said.
‘‘The plan is to build up to produce the goods on the day at the tournament. If you want to be a national champion, you should beat whoever turns up.’’