KleinJan narrowly misses out on medal
KleinJan goes down in Commonwealth bronze medal fight
RICHARDS Bay wrestling ace KleinJan Combrinck finished fourth overall in the men’s freestyle 57kg division at the Commonwealth Games, after going down 5-2 on points to Nigeria’s Ebikewenimo Welson in the bronze medal shoot-out contested on Thursday morning.
This is an exceptional achievement for Combrinck, who was making his debut at the prestigious games at the tender age of 22.
The youngster came up against a more experienced, Welson who has bagged two silver Commonwealth medals in his career thus far.
Combrinck had beaten Welson to take the gold medal at the Senior African Championships held in Port Harcourt (Nigeria) earlier this year, but could not repeat the performance.
Both athletes were in superb physical shape and currently at the top of their game, which resulted in a closely contested match-up.
Welson took the first point of the encounter after Combrinck failed to score during his 30-second caution.
The referee awards a caution to one wrestler to speed up the action during the bout.
If the wrestler scores, he gets a point. If not he loses a point.
Welson managed to complete a roll which earned him a further two points to extend his lead to 3-0.
PHOTO: Dave Savides
Combrinck fought back and earned a point to get on the board and open his scoring account for the day (3-1).
But the Nigerian was awarded a caution from the referee and Combrinck capitalised to narrow the gap to 3-2.
With minutes left on the clock, the Nigerian’s experience came through and he executed another roll which earned him another two points to extend his lead to 5-2.
Unfortunately for Combrinck time ran out and he had to settle for a fourth place finish.
‘I am extremely proud of my son and his achievements,’ said dad Jan Combrinck.
‘He is still young and will take this experience as a learning curve.
‘We will keep working hard towards the Olympic dream for 2020 and will achieve the necessary criteria that SASCOC has set for the Olympics.
‘There is a ranking tournament coming up in July in South Africa that is run by United World Wrestling and I am very confident to say that KleinJan and Ebikewenimo will meet up again.’
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