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Persson medals at provincials to end high school wrestling career

Drew Persson is laser-focused on her future.
11052132_web1_Drew.Persson

Drew Persson is laser-focused on her future.

Goal-after-goal, match-after-match she has planned out her in mind, all the way to becoming an eventual Olympic Wrestling champ for Canada.

Persson, 18, won silver at the Alberta Schools Athletic Association Wrestling Championships last weekend. She was the defending champion in the 70-kilogram weight class after winning gold in 2017.

In her final match this time around, a technical defeat by Vianne Rouleau of Archbishop MacDonald in Edmonton, it was not how the Notre Dame Cougar imagined her high school career ending. It was only her second loss of the entire wrestling season.

“I wrestled pretty much the same (as the previous match) and she game planned for that. I didn’t really change up what I was doing,” Persson recalled.

“It was a good match and she’s a good wrestler, it was the fifth time we’ve wrestled each other this season… it was good closure even though it wasn’t the result I wanted.”

It would have been easy to mail it in after that loss and move on to other pursuits. Instead, she treated the loss, not as an insurmountable hurdle, but motivation.

She got back in the gym, worked hard and prepared for Nationals in April. Using the defeat as a lesson on the journey to success.

“It was a good learning experience and if it would have been another match, I don’t think I would have learned the same lesson. Those lessons I learned from provincials will help a lot going into nationals,” Persson said.

“I lost my first match this season to a national team member at the junior level. All my other matches I have pretty much dominated over the season… overall it’s been a good season.”

Persson knows it’ll be a tough road to pick up a win next month at nationals, but she’s ready for the test.

The next step after that is to wrestle at the University of Calgary and represent the Dinos.

“All season the goal has been to win nationals. I think on the day of the event, it’s more match-by-match. Just going out there and wrestling the best I can. That’s something I can control,” she said.

“When I do wrestle the hardest, normally the result is a win. If I have a goal set in the match, things just become easier once you just start the match.”

All in the pursuit of her ultimate goal, one day, competing against the best around the world on the biggest stage in her sport.

“I want to be the best wrestler in the world. Compete at the Olympic level and win a gold medal obviously,” Persson said.



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Byron Hackett

About the Author: Byron Hackett

Byron has been the sports reporter at the advocate since December of 2016. He likes to spend his time in cold hockey arenas accompanied by luke warm, watered down coffee.
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