Bodnarchuk warrants gold, hands down
Part of eight-medal haul by Sask. in men's wrestling

Tim Switzer, Saskatchewan News Network

August 20, 2005  Saskatoon's Mitch Bodnarchuk hit the wall doing sprints last winter. He felt something strain in his right wrist.

But the tendinitis that has since plagued the Saskatoon wrestler didn't bother him a bit as he shook dozens of hands after winning gold Thursday night at the Canada Summer Games.

"It's been crazy -- up to eight matches here -- usually you wrestle five or six at a tournament in these three days," said Bodnarchuk, his title in the 58-kg division adding to the gold Saskatchewan won in the team wrestling event Wednesday. "It's been a lot of work, a lot of effort put into this. This is a dream come true: Double gold at the Canada Summer Games.

"Our older athletes in our club, they got second here four years ago and they've been pushing us. They told us their stories and we wanted to work that much harder and get double gold."

The victory was all the more impressive considering Bodnarchuk, 18, could barely use his right hand because of the tendinitis. The hand is heavily taped for each match and he refrained from ever using it to take a grip on one of his opponents; instead, he tried to hook the wrist around arms and legs as best he could.

"(Thursday) it was really good -- I've been icing it and lots of Advil and stuff," he said. "But (Wednesday) I could hardly grip or bend my wrist at all. I've been getting it pretty much immobilized completely. It was really bad. The worst it's ever been. It was a struggle."

The victory was all the sweeter too since it came against B.C.'s Raj Rai, who beat Bodnarchuk on Wednesday in Team Sask's final dual match of the round-robin.

"It was almost better (having lost) because I knew what I needed to do and I knew what I was doing wrong and it just let me focus more on what I needed to do (Thursday) and get the job done," he said.

Craig Albert of Saskatoon won gold in the 105 kg class, beating Alberta's Joshua Schug.

Daniel Olver (74 kg) and Adam Kent (90 kg) of Saskatoon both won silvers. Bronze medals went to Saskatoon's Bryan Blackwell (50 kg) and Spencer Edwards (63 kg), Regina's Calvin Daum (68 kg) and Swift Current's Bradley Peters (105-plus kg).

Regina's Kirk Ackerman, who broke his arm during his semifinal match, finished fourth (46 kg), as did Saskatoon's Ryan Myrfield (54 kg) and Chris Hobman (81 kg).

© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005.