Olds wrestler Danielle Lappage captured first-place honours in her weight category at an Austrian wrestling tournament on the weekend of June 14 and 15.Lappage, 23, a member of the Canadian wrestling team, took home a gold medal in the 63-kilogram category at the Austrian Ladies Open in the town of Gotzis.Fellow Olds resident and national teammate Amber Maschke, 19, captured a bronze at the tournament in the 55-kilogram category.Both wrestlers also competed at the 2014 German Grand Prix in the German town of Dormagen one weekend earlier where Lappage came in 12th in her category and Maschke came in eighth in her weight category.Lappage, who is working toward her master's degree in criminology at Simon Fraser University, was not available for comment before press time. Maschke, who just finished her first year at the University of Alberta and currently lives in Edmonton, said the competitions were “tougher” than what she is used to since she normally wrestles as a junior, going up against competitors aged 20 and under, while the European tournaments were for senior wrestlers aged 21 and up.“The main difference between me and the seniors was our cardio and just the general ability to make it to the end of the match without feeling tired,” she said.She added her opponents threw many surprises at her.“Different countries wrestle different styles.”For example, the competitor from Great Britain she defeated to win the bronze medal in Austria was a very technical wrestler, Maschke said, while a contender she wrestled from Belarus was much stronger.She also said she hurt her shoulder while wrestling her opponent from Britain at the Austrian event when she popped it out and back in again to avoid being pinned.Maschke said she is taking it slow to recover from the injury while preparing for upcoming competitions including the Junior Pan Am Wrestling Championships in Toronto on June 28 and 29 and the Canada Cup tournament in Guelph, Ont., next month.She is also currently fundraising in order to attend the Junior World Championships in Zagreb, Croatia, from August 5 to 10.Anyone wishing to contribute to Maschke's fundraising effort can visit http://makeachamp.com/ambermaschke.According to an interview with the Olds Albertan in May, Lappage will compete next month at the University Worlds in Hungary and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.She will also attend the world championships, held in Uzbekistan, in [email protected]
