Talk about being double booked.
An Okotoks wrestler has passed on the Canada Summer Games in order to represent her country.
Abi Watkins, 17, qualified for Team Alberta for the Summer Games in Sherbrooke, QC on Aug. 2-17, but she also made Team Canada for the Pan Am Wrestling Games in Medellin, Columbia which runs Aug. 9-11.
“I was crushed because I really wanted to go to both,” said Watkins, who is entering Grade 12 at Holy Trinity Academy. “When I talked to my other coaches they told me I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to wrestle for Team Canada.”
Watkins initially didn’t qualify for the Pan Am Games because she was third at the national qualifying tournament in Saskatoon last April. However, when the second-place wrestler was unable to go, Watkins booked her plane ticket to Columbia.
Now she is been busy getting ready for Medellin.
Watkins took a break from wrestling after the national tournament in April, but was on the mat full bore starting in late June.
“I am getting there, I’m not quite in my wrestling mode,” Watkins said. “I have been practicing with the university team (University of Calgary) and I have been getting my butt kicked because they are all really, really good wrestlers, but I think I have improved significantly.”
Wrestling is a sport where there are plenty of holds, but no one holds a grudge.
Watkins is also practicing with the Sherbrooke-bound Team Alberta despite the fact she had to leave the squad in her search for Columbian gold.
“It is weird seeing all the wrestlers and the coach still giving me tips,” Watkins said. “I am so grateful to them for letting me wrestle with them, because there are only a few wrestlers at the university in my weight class, but there are four or five with Team Alberta.
The Pan Am Games have almost become a right of passage for the “Wrestling Watkins”.
Her brother Spencer qualified in 2008, but the event was cancelled due to the swine flu outbreak in Mexico. Another brother, Reid, won the gold medal at the 2010 Pan Am Games in Brazil. Reid, a three-time Canadian champion who now wrestles at Simon Fraser University, recommended she head to Columbia.
He advised her to mentally not settle for anything less than gold.
“Reid has nagged me a lot about preparation,” Abi said. “That I have to go into the tournament wanting gold, not just going there to win a medal.
“He also told me to work on my endurance.”
She has built up some of her endurance with a unique form of exercise, warming hearts while breaking down walls in the process.
“My friend and I went down to High River and Calgary to help,” she said. “We got to tear down this garage and rip down some walls.”
