A bronze medal at the Junior Canadian Wrestling Championships was good as gold for Jack McDougall.
The Grade 12 St. Albert Skyhawk finished third overall in the 60-kilogram division in his U20 national debut last weekend at St. Catharines, Ont.
“It’s my first medal at any nationals so that meant a ton to me especially because it was technically an age category above what I would typically wrestle right now so that was a huge thing for me,” said McDougall, 17. “I was extremely proud and happy. I would definitely say this is the highlight of the season so far.”
The Edmonton Wrestling Club member, who also trains with the University of Alberta Bears, won his last two matches to finish 3-1 as the bronze medallist out of nine grapplers.
“I went in with the mindset that this will be a good experience and good preparation for juvenile nationals so I didn’t go in expecting to medal but I wanted to do my best and I’m extremely pleased with the results,” McDougall said. “It means a lot to me that I can compete with that level of wrestler right now, just to see how far I’ve come in the past years. I used to not be able to even score on them and now I’m beating them and getting third in the entire country for my weight category.”
Previous nationals included last year’s fourth-place result in the 63-kg division at the U18 juveniles and at the U16 cadets McDougall was seventh in 2015 and eighth in 2014.
“This year I’ve lost quite a fair bit in a number of matches but in doing that I’ve learned more than I have in past years where I’ve just wrestled high school and junior high kids and just kind of tore through them so my mental game was stronger, I was physically stronger and my technique was better because I’ve been training with the university team for now two years,” said McDougall, who is in “fairly good shape” while training five to six times a week.
“If I’m doubling up on practices it’s a three-hour practice where I do university and then I will do a high school practice and then I also have weight training on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” said McDougall, who uses his Go Go Gadget long arms to wreak havoc on the mat. “I’ve always been reasonably strong for my age category and I’ve been able to keep up with the other guys. My stamina has never been too much of an issue because of rugby, which I don’t play too much any more but I’m looking to get back into it sometime soon, but my speed and technique have definitely improved.”
McDougall put it all together at junior nationals, starting with his first match against Jobandeep Bhullar of Akhara of Champions in Mississauga, Ont., before coming up short against Garret Sales of the Guelph Wrestling Club, the eventual silver medallist.
McDougall closed out the competition by powering through Chris Nikolaou of the London-Western Wrestling Club, the fifth-place finisher, and a familiar foe, Brendan McKeage of the Cochrane Cowboys, for the bronze.
“I’ve wrestled with him plenty,” McDougall said of one of the few 60-kg juniors roughly his same age at nationals. “At the Alberta Open we did juvenile and junior and he beat me in the juvenile and I beat him in the junior.
“(In the bronze final) I took him down four times and turned him once so every time I took him down that was two points and the one time I turned him that was another two so I won by superiority, which is 10 points.”
McDougall’s second juvenile nationals start April 7 in Windsor, Ont.
“I’m definitely looking to place. I know the competition will be just as tough if not a little tougher because a lot of these guys will know me and will know how to wrestle against me but I'm looking forward to it.”
Leading up to junior nationals was the Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association championships and McDougall pinned down gold in the 65-kg division for the Skyhawks.
“I had a lot of guys that were up and coming kind of thing so I handled them pretty easily,” said the high school provincial silver medallist at 65 kg last year and 62 kg in 2015.
Upcoming for McDougall is the provincial qualifier for the Canada Summer Games, July 28 to Aug. 13 at Winnipeg.
“That’s another big one I’m working towards.”
