OTTAWA – Canadian wrestlers came away with four more medals on the final day of competition at the Pan-American Championships in Ottawa.

Heavyweight Amar Dhesi was forced to withdraw from the 125 kg gold medal match due to an injury. The 24-year-old qualified with a pin over Oscar Pino Hinds of Cuba in the semifinals.

Dhesi, of the Burnaby Mountain Wrestling Club, is slated to wrestle at next weekend’s Pan-American Olympic Qualification Tournament.

“I’m going to work on a few things that need to be worked on,” said Dhesi. “Not huge things, there’s only a couple of days to go. I’m trying to wrestle my way, create a lot of action, score a lot of points, and have fun.”

Clayton Pye of Ingersoll, Ont., defeated Argentina’s Ricardo Adrian Baez in the 86 kg bronze medal match. Pye was competing in his international championship for Canada after winning the Canadian Wrestling Trials in December.

Pye will also be wrestling at the Olympic Qualifier, where the top two finishers in each weight-class will qualify a quota spot for their country at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

“I think I definitely could have wrestled smarter,” said the Brock wrestler. “In my second match I was controlling the first round but made some mistakes when I had a leg attack that ran him out of bounds instead of taking him down.”

“Taking the mistakes from this tournament and using them to get better for the next one is really important. I’m going to rest up and do some focused training.”

Scott Schiller lost his lone match of his two-man 61 kg bracket. Schiller, of the Montreal Wrestling Club took silver after losing 11-0 to Tyler Graff of USA.

Cruiz Manning finished third in the 70 kg round-robin to claim bronze. The Brock Wrestler finished behind American Anthony Ashnault and Mexico’s Brandon Disair Diaz Ramirez

Ligrit Sadiku was forced to pull out of the 57 kg bronze medal match. Sadiku, who are trains with Brock Wrestling Club lost his quarterfinal matchup to Pedro Jesus Mejias Rodrigue of Venezuela 6-1.

Jasmit Phulka held onto his qualifying round lead to defeat Dominica’s Julio Rafael Rodriguez Romero 5-4. In the 74 kg quarterfinals he was unable to score in 3-0 loss to Cuban Jeandry Garzon Caballero.

Sadiku and Phulka are also schedule to compete at next weekend’s Olympic Qualifier.

In the 97 kg Nordic-style round-robin, Nishan Randhawa’s win against Mexico and loses to Cuba and Venezuela wasn’t enough to advance him to the semifinals.

Vince De Marinis dropped his 65 kg quarterfinals matchup 11-2 against Argentinian Agustin Alejandro Destribats.

The Pan-American Championships ran from March 6 to 9 at the Shaw Centre in downtown Ottawa. Olympic spots will be on the line at the Pan-American Olympic Qualification Tournament taking place at the same venue from March 13 to 15.

Complete Results

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