Female wrestlers on the rise
‘‘The thing that strikes me is that girls do judo, karate, rugby and other things but there has always been a stigma about girls wrestling. It is no different to the others.’’
Women in wrestling is on the rise at the Rangiora Amateur Wrestling Club.
The club has a growing number of young girls taking up the sport.
‘‘This week we had 40 kids along and about a quarter of them were girls,’’ club spokesman Kevan McLaughlan said.
‘‘We have been steadily growing the numbers but it is only now that we have a group within the same age range that can train well together.’’
The club is enjoying a period of growth across the board but the number of junior girls has doubled in the last year.
‘‘We’ve always had fairly good numbers but male dominated so it is great to see a growing number of girls.’’
‘‘The thing that strikes me is that girls do judo, karate, rugby and other things but there has always been a stigma about girls wrestling. It is no different to the others.’’
It teaches discipline, provides strength and fitness but also selfdefense, McLaughlan said.
The club was home to New Zealand representative Taylor Ford, who won a bronze medal at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, before she moved to the North Island, and the hope is that some of the current junior crop stick at it and follow in her footsteps.
When they compete, the U10 and U13 grades are mixed in with the boys but the Rangiora Rattlers have had some solid results.
At the recent South Island Championships, where some of the squad made their way south through the rising floodwaters to Mosgiel, Charlotte Shelley was second in the U10 36kg.
McLaughlan said they were finalising which wrestlers from the club were attending the New Zealand Nationals at Te Awamutu on September 7-8.
Meanwhile, two senior male members of the club, Stephen Hill and Sam Belkin, are looking at plans to make the team for the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, Australia.
They both competed at the last Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014, where Belkin won a bronze medal.