Youth Olympian Stans gunning for Gold Coast

She represented South Africa at the last Youth Olympics in Nanjing, China three years ago and now Leanco Stans’ quest to qualify for next year’s Commonwealth Games in Australia starts in earnest .

She’ll be grappling at the Commonwealth Wrestling Championships at Carnival City, Brakpan next month.

The 20-year-old UP-Tuks wrestler admits she’s in for a tough challenge as quite a few Olympians will be competing. One of the top contenders in her under-66kg weight category is going to be New Zealand’s Tayla Ford who won a bronze medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland and represented her country at last year’s Olympic Games.

Stans is not sure, but says she might have to grapple against one or two of Australia and Nigeria’sthan 10 female wrestlers on the mat, and everybody wanted to be the best.’

Stans said they trained 10 times a week, and did three power and stamina sessions. The rest of the time they were on the mat where the coaches helped them to hone their technical skills.

Ford was also at the training camp and Stans describes the New Zealander as a real ‘tiger’ on the mat.

‘One of the valuable lessons I learned in Finland is not to be stressed out about a rival’s reputation. It’s a case of stepping onto the mat and give it 100%,’ said Stans.

Earlier this year at the African Junior Championships in Marrakech, Morocco she was fourth in the freestyle category, equalling her 2016 placing. She has represented South Africa at every African