Freestyle Competition
Palau’s wrestling team enjoyed 3 days of competition. On Tuesday, December 5, 2017, Palau’s wrestling team competed in the freestyle competition against team Yap. The first to win gold medal was our youngest female athlete, Uilau ILebrang Tarkong, age 12 who won the gold medal against her opponent who was 18 years old. Nick Ko would win the bronze medal; Blesam Tarkong won the gold in the 74kg weight division; Skarlee Renguul won the gold medal for Palau after defeating Junior Thomas Wichibuch of Yap in the 79kg division; and In the heavy weight mens freestyle 125kg division, Dukay Tairuwepiy of Yap won the gold medal against Elmo Moses of Yap.
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Greco Roman Competition
On day 2 of the Greco Roman competition, Blesam Tarkong led the team to earn another gold medal, Skarlee Renguul – silver medal;, Elmo Moses won gold medal in the heavy weight division. Stahler Swenny won gold in the junior division while Nick won bronze in the junior division.
Beach Wrestling Competition
On Thursday, December 7, 2017, the beach wrestling competition was held at the Pine Bar & Grill.
Our youngest athlete, Uilau Ilibrang Tarkong won the gold medal in the junior womens light weight division. In the junior division, Stahler Swenny won the gold medal while Nick Ko also of Palau who won the silver. In the mens senior light weight division, Blesam Tarkong won the gold after defeating all of his opponents. Skarlee Renguul won the gold in the mens senior heavy weight division. Elmo Moses won the silver medal. In the female senior weight heavy weight division, Tracy of Yap won the gold medal against Louisa of Yap. In order to determine the best of the best champion in the overall match, the top wrestlers from the senior light weight division competed against the champion from the senior heavy weight class. Blesam Tarkong defeated Skarlee Renguul for the gold. In the female overall match, Uilau Tarkong competed against heavy weight Tracy of Yap. Tracy won the gold medal. Tracy proved to be too heavy for our 12 year old Uilau.
The results for the 3 days of competition had Palau’s wrestling team earning a total of 4 golds, 1 silver and 1 bronze in the freestyle competition. In the Greco roman competition, Palau’s wrestling team won 3 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze. In Beach Wrestling, Palau’s wrestling team won 6 gold medals and 2 silver medals.
Palau’s team wrestled exceptionally well considering we only had 6 athletes competing in Yap. With the exception of Blesam Tarkong, Palau’s team was very young with 4 of them competing for their very first time. Realizing that Yap was in need of singlets and wrestling shoes, Palau’s wrestling team was able to donate some wrestling shoes and singlets to Yap in order to ensure that their wrestlers could compete in accordance with the international competition requirements. We would like to thank Yap for hosting us and our athletes for giving it their best, win or lose, this was good preparation for our team for next year’s Micronesian Games. Also, Ke kmal mesaul to the people of Ruul Village in Yap who hosted us and the organizers of the Yap – Palau Games. [/restrict]