A Collingwood woman has strong-armed her way to an international stage bearing the name of a legend of strength.
Sarah Wilson will be one of more than 250 competitors in next weekend’s Arnold Classic Armwrestling Challenge.
The competition – named for Arnold Schwarzenegger – features the fiercest biceps and triceps from 15 countries.
This will be Wilson’s first time competing at an international event, though her competitive career has taken her to national level competition. She began armwrestling at age 9 when her father Earl Wilson picked up the sport. She qualified for her first national competition in 2013 at age 26.
She has been spurred by her father’s success. He’s earned 11 world titles, all the while he coached his daughter. But he hasn’t won the Arnold Classic.
“I really want to win,” she said, adding she’s very competitive with her father. “Dad’s been a couple of times but he’s never won … he was so good, I want to be just as good as him. It’s a lot of pressure.”
Wilson grew up in Collingwood and works as a personal support worker at Sunset Manor. She trains a few times a week at The Centre Squash and Wellness Centre in Collingwood. The gym has given her $500 toward her trip to Columbus, Ohio for the Arnold Classic.
She said her training involves a lot of upper body focus with weightlifting, and an occasional arm wrestle with her dad. She will also join in on practices with clubs in Kitchener, Listowel, Wasaga Beach, and Barrie. She likes training on “different hands.”
Professional armwrestling is done on a specialized table and with a set of rules. A match is won when a competitor can get any part of her opponents hand above the wrist past a line on the table.
“It is an actual sport,” said Wilson. “People don’t know that. It’s a lot of fun and you meet some of the craziest, coolest people ever.”
In Ontario, female armwrestling isn’t very popular, she said. But in Europe, she could be paid as a professional athlete in the sport.
Armwrestlers can choose to compete with only their left or right arm. Wilson wrestles with both. She will also use two different grips – a top roll and a hook – depending on the match.
“It’s not just about strength, there’s a lot of strategy involved,” she said, adding a competitive drive is also important for an athlete in armwrestling. “If you don’t have a drive, it crumbles. Everyone is training and everyone wants to win. You have to be better.”
Matches can last from a couple of seconds to several minutes. Wilson said she saw a match last weekend that lasted eight minutes. Wilson said her longest match was around two minutes.
During a tournament, an armwrestler can face several opponents in a day. Once a competitor loses two matches, she is out of the tournament.
Wilson said she’s a nervous person, so a lot of her pre-match prep involves calming her nerves and focusing. Since this is her first time competing in the United States, her goal is to get each match over with quickly.
“I’ll be trying to get everyone down as quick as I can,” she said. “My main focus is, I want to win just to say, ‘hey dad, I did this and you didn’t.’”
Wilson will also be attending a world championship competition in Orlando this September following the national competition in July.
The Arnold Classic takes place March 5-8.
