The Vice President of Eastern Gauteng Wrestling, Mpho Madi says the South African Wrestling team will surpass her previous overall medal tally of 18 at the 2018 African Championships in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
South Africa won 5 Gold, 9 Silver and 4 bronze medals at the 2017 African Wrestling Championships in Marrakesh, Morocco.
In a chat with aclsports.com, the former commonwealth bronze medalist said the cadets and juniors stand better chances of carting away most of the medals in the categories due to better exposure by the South Africa Wrestling Federation.
“The cadets and junior can get more medals. The cadets were excellent in Marrakesh last year at the African Championships with an excellent performance taking 5 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze medals. They also took the Freestyle Cadet Team Trophy”.
“The juniors did not perform badly too. They narrowly miss out on two or three gold medals in the finals. They returned home with 5 silver and a bronze, which is one of the better performances by a junior team in the past few years”, the certified coach told our reporter.
For the senior category, Vice President of Eastern Gauteng Wrestling said she’s hoping for 2 gold and at least 5 medals in the freestyle and Greco-Roman.
“Hein Jansen Van Rensburg (-86kg) won a bronze medal and Martin Erasmus (-96kg) won silver medal against his Nigerian nemesis, Soso Tamara who he beat in 2015 Continental Championships and lost to at the All Africa Games later that year”.
Aclsports.com gathered that cadet, junior and senior wrestlers only go to camp weekends, as most athletes go to school during the week.
The camp is located in Johannesburg.
