Team Nunavut’s wrestlers “itching to start” Canada Summer Games matches

Members of Team Nunavut enter the official opening of the Canada Summer Games August 2 in Sherbooke, Quebec, where Nunavik singer and songwriter Elisapie Isaac also performed. Competitions for the team’s three wrestlers get underway August 6. (PHOTO BY LOUISE CARON)

SHERBROOKE, Que. — After practicing intensively in Montreal at a pre-games wrestling camp and again in Sherbrooke over this past week, Team Nunavut’s wrestlers are ready for the Aug. 6 start of their competitions.

They’re “itching to start”, said Jeff Seeteenak, Team Nunavut’s chef de mission at the Canada Summer Games, about the three wrestlers representing Nunavut at the games — Sandy Saviakjuk, 18, of Coral Harbour, Arthur Siksik, 17, of Rankin Inlet and David Haulli Jr., 18, of Igloolik.

They’re among the 4,200 athletes competing in 20 sports at 20 different venues around Sherbrooke, a city of about 200,000 in the Eastern Townships region of southern Quebec, until Aug. 17.

Team Nunavut is the smallest team participating in the games — but Seeteenak said Aug. 5 that he expects the Nunavut wrestlers will do fine, although they’ll be competing against wrestlers with far more experience who have their eye on representing Canada in the 2016 summer Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Unlike Nunavut’s wrestlers, many members of wrestling teams from other provinces and territories participate in numerous competitions throughout the year.

“They may lack the experience, but they’re there to compete,” Seeteenak said.

On Aug. 5 Team Nunavut’s three wrestlers were due to weigh in for their wrestling class — an important part of qualifying for the competition.

Saviakjuk’s class is for wrestlers weighing up to 54 kilos, Haulli’s class for wrestlers up to 85 kilos and Siksik’s for those up to 100 kilos.

Wrestling has been part of Olympic Games of 1896, but it may be the world’s oldest competitive sport, with Egyptian wall paintings from 5,000 B.C. depicting wrestlers.

The original Greek Olympics put wrestling on the map in the ancient world in 708 B.C. when wrestling was more violent, punishing sport with ties to military training, according to information from the Canada Summer Games.

Now, the goal of each match is for a wrestler to pin the shoulder blades of his or her opponent to the mat at the same time: that pin or “fall” ends the match immediately.

The wrestling competitions are scheduled to take place Aug. 6 and Aug. 7 at the Sherbrooke CEGEP college, inside a venue with five gymnasiums, a swimming pool and an indoor track.

On Aug. 6 the team meets Alberta, B.C., Newfoundland and Labrador, and Manitoba.

For more information on the Canada Summer Games, visit its website.

Look for more coverage from the Canada Summer Games and more photos later on Nunatsiaqonline.ca and on the Nunatsiaq News Facebook page.