By Dan Plouffe
Paula Preston vividly recalls the first major title her daughter won. Erica Wiebe was in Grade 10, and it was her first time competing at the Cadet Wrestling National Championships.
“The best place to watch was on the balcony above the mat, and I remember looking down and I couldn’t believe it,” Preston recounts. “We went there with no expectations, just thought we’d go see what it’s like, give her some experience, and she goes and wins.”
At that tournament, Preston chatted and made friends with the parents of Wiebe’s eventual opponent in the final. Fast forward 12 years and both combatants are set to compete for Canada in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games – Kelita Zupancic, now in judo, and Wiebe, a strong medal prospect in the women’s freestyle wrestling 75 kg weight class.
Wiebe’s first nationals appearance is now a treasured mother-daughter trip, though at the time the pairing was borne more out of necessity.
With no one else locally planning to attend the competition, “My mom was like, ‘Alright, well let’s go,’” recounts Wiebe, now 27. “So she and I flew to nationals, which was in Newfoundland, and I competed.”
Both newbies to the scene, the duo had to find their way together.
“I remember I almost skipped weigh-ins because we didn’t know where to go,” laughs Wiebe, who’s since gone on to win five more Canadian titles.
While her family had little experience in sport, Wiebe did learn a thing or two about dedication.
Throughout Wiebe’s journey from a competitive soccer player into a wrestler – and her older sister’s “fabulous opportunities” with the Kanata Rhythmic Gymnastics Club (where the gritty grappler also moonlighted once upon a time) – Preston has volunteered tirelessly to help out in sport, serving as meet director and jack-of-all-volunteer-jobs with Kanata Rhythmic, helping out with Ottawa Fury game-day operations, and learning to become a draw master so the National Capital Wrestling Club could run its own tournament, which is now 12 years old.
Preston maintains many of those roles to this day, though her daughters have moved on from those local clubs long ago.
“She’s always been so generous with her time and energy,” underlines Wiebe, who took up the sport in Grade 9 at Sacred Heart Catholic High School. “That’s the backbone of why I’m able to do what I do. Without that support infrastructure, I wouldn’t be wrestling. And without the volunteers that were part of National Capital Wrestling, I wouldn’t be where I am.”
Wiebe got to see many of those familiar faces when close to 100 supporters attended a June fundraiser at NeXT restaurant in Stittsville, including many coaches and members of the National Capital Wrestling Club, her high school coach Silvano Sanna (who will watch her live in Rio), and event speakers Ole and Cody Sorensen, the local father-son tandem who competed in Olympic wrestling and bobsled respectively.
“There was such great energy in the room,” highlights the University of Calgary-based athlete. “It was really, really cool to have that all be about my Olympic journey.”
Wiebe recalls being inspired when Sydney 2000 Olympic gold medallist Daniel Igali came to visit NCWC at a practice.
“You see those iconic images of him kneeling down in front of the flag, thanking Canada,” she reflects. “It was a nice reminder that this person, who’s now the Olympic champion, is right there, he’s a real person, and maybe it’s possible to become that one day.”
Wiebe got to parade around with the Canadian flag and hear O Canada while wearing a gold medal herself, at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.
Of course, she would love to replicate that scene in Rio, and it’s an entirely plausible prospect, given that the world’s #2-ranked wrestler has beaten all the best wrestlers on the planet, including past Olympic champions and medallists.
Her goals are simple, however: “to perform my best, be ready to go on the 18th (of August), and wrestle like I know I can.”
And when Wiebe makes her debut on the biggest stage in sport, her mom will again be watching down.
“Erica was as prepared as she could be going into that (first nationals) event and we hope that she’s in the same state with the Olympics – though she’s got a much better instructor with her this time, that’s for sure,” Preston laughs. “I’m just thrilled for her that she’ll have this opportunity to do what she’s been dreaming of.”
Advice to aspiring young athletes:
“Dream big, but focus on the everyday. That would be the tagline. It’s so great to have these dreams of going to the Olympics, but what you really want to think about being your best every day. I think that’s what got me here – always thinking about having the best practice, being the best on that day. I think those small, incremental steps are the key to accomplishing this big dream. It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s taken me 8 years since I moved to Calgary to accomplish this dream. That’s 8 years of training every day. It’s a lot of investment of time, energy, and emotions. But it’s worth it.”
– Erica Wiebe