Five podium finishes this year was too good to be true for wrestler Lewis Biamonte.
“I’m very happy,” the Grade 12 Bellerose Bulldog said with an ear-to-ear smile. “I wanted to do better than last season. I wanted to get a medal at provincials too and I also wanted to see how I would do against people who wrestled longer than me.”
The Greco Roman national juvenile champion in the men’s 100-kilogram category is also the high school provincial 98 kg silver medallist.
His medal haul included gold at the 27th annual Paperweight Invitational at the University of Alberta and the Edmonton zone championship in the 98 kg class and bronze at the Alberta open championship in the 100 kg class.
“Winning all those medals shows how much you’ve trained I guess, and how hard you’ve worked to get them. It’s nice to see all that hard work pay off,” said the fit and trim six-foot-two and 220-pound grappler. “I was definitely stronger than last year by a lot.”
The 17-year-old flexed his mighty muscles offensively after playing a defensive role on the mat in previous years.
“I was more aggressive in my offence rather than getting thrown around,” said Biamonte, who credited Bellerose wrestling coach Eve Crowston for the turnaround. “I had better offence and I was doing moves.”
His winning performance at the Paperweight in February set the stage for a season to remember.
“Of all the medals I was most proud of the first gold. I think I had about six matches and I won all of them in under a minute,” Biamonte said. “Usually at that tournament I’ve lost my matches right at the beginning.”
The next meet for Biamonte was zones in Stony Plain in early March. His performance helped the Bulldogs finish third overall in the men’s division.
“It definitely gave me a lot of confidence for provincials. Most of my matches didn’t last longer than a minute so I was pretty pleased with how I did there,” said the silver and gold medallist the last two years at zones. “This year I had the most competition than in previous years so I felt better about that.”
The next week at provincials in Stony Plain, Biamonte met his match against Nick Proctor in the final. The national-level competitor with the Crescent Heights Cowboys in Calgary won the first two rounds on points.
“If I had won I would’ve been overjoyed but I really wanted to see how I would do against him, just to see where I’m at and where I need to be to compete with the best in Canada. I tried some offence and it didn’t work so well so I played a lot of defence and it seemed to me that he was having some trouble getting points on me so I’m happy about that,” Biamonte said. “He was close to pinning me at one point but I got out of it. I was really happy about that because I didn’t want to get pinned by him.”
Finishing second out of 13 wrestlers in his third trip to provincials was a huge improvement after last year’s sixth-place showing in the 90 kg class.
“This was my first time even getting close to a medal at provincials so I was pretty happy about that. I wasn’t really expecting to do great. I kind of thought I would maybe get fourth.”
At the Alberta open in mid-March at Edson, Biamonte settled for bronze after losses to Lucas Nowostead of the O’Leary Spartans and Proctor. Nowostead was the silver medallist at zones and placed fourth at provincials.
“I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses but I wasn’t feeling very well that day. I hadn’t eaten much. It was not one of my better days for wrestling at all,” Biamonte said. “I wrestled Lucas first and he beat me so against Nick I really, really wanted to show Lucas that I’m better than that but it didn’t work out that way.”
Last month at juvenile nationals in Windsor, Ont. Biamonte wrestled Greco Roman for the first time and was victorious in the two-man division.
“You’re not allowed to touch their legs so it was completely new to me. I didn’t even know I was doing it until I got there and my coach said he had signed me up for Greco. I was just kind of learning from my roommates actually in the hotel. They were telling me stuff so that’s pretty much where I got my crash course in Greco.”
It only took Biamonte one minute and 32 seconds to pin his opponent in the first round.
“I kind of felt a little like I hadn’t earned it as much as some of the other people who had gone like six matches to get their gold but then my coach told me it’s the best in Canada and we’re the best two people in Canada in that weight category.”
As his high school athletic career draws to a close, Biamonte is focusing on rugby as the Bulldogs look to win premier after last year’s city conference triumph in the metro Edmonton league. The intimidating outside-centre is going into his third year of rugby with the Bulldogs. He also played three years of football at Bellerose and was honoured as the 2010 outstanding defensive lineman and co-winner of the outstanding offensive lineman award.
The former St. Albert Storm midget spring league player is hoping to play junior football in the fall with the Edmonton Huskies.
“When I’m doing wrestling, I say I like wrestling more and when I’m doing football I like football more. It‘s the same with rugby really. I don’t really think I can choose one sport over another,” said Biamonte, who has applied to NAIT to become an emergency medical technician.
