Maple Ridge wrestler wins gold at national championships

Maple Ridge wrestler Ivy Threatful won her second national gold at the 2023 Canadian Wrestling Championships.

Now the former Maple Ridge secondary athlete has earned the right to represent Canada at the Pan Am Wrestling Championships in Chile on July 6-9.

If she places highly there, Threatful could move on again fight for her country at the Junior World Championships, which will be held in Poland in August.

Now an SFU wrestler, she was fighting for the Burnaby Mountain Wrestling Club, in the junior women’s 53 kg weight class. The championships for senior, junior, and cadet wrestlers was held on March 9-12 in Waterloo, Ontario.

Threatful put on a dominant performance in Ontario. In her first match, she pinned her opponent in 25 seconds. In her second match, she trailed briefly, but came back to win with another pin.

In her two final matches, including the gold medal contest, she won by technical fall – meaning she was up 10-0 and declared the winner.

Threatful won as a cadet in 2019, and took third as a junior last year, but this was her last chance at a junior championship before moving up to the tough senior ranks next year.

She said it was another year of training and competing that turned last year’s bronze performance into gold.

“I had another year at SFU, and it was my first full year in the NCAA, and all the girls are super good,” she said.

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Threatful is no stranger to international competition, having been chosen for the Pan Am Games in 2021, and placing seventh in Mexico.

This time, she wants that higher finish, so she can qualify for the worlds in Warsaw.

“That’s definitely the goal – finish schooling, and train.”

There were other Maple Ridge secondary wrestlers and alumni at the event, as Madisyn Grof also competed in the junior 53 kg class, and took fourth for the Coast Wrestling Academy.

Ashton Senko wrestled in the 57 kg cadet class, and won the silver medal for Coast Wrestling, and Marquesis Haintz took fifth in the senior women’s 57 kg class for the Burnaby Mountain team.

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