(Ottawa, Canada) – Wrestling Canada Lutte (WCL) is pleased to announce that Tonya Verbeek has been announced as the association’s new International Coach.

Verbeek, the three-time Olympic medalist and one of Canada’s most decorated wrestlers, will now evolve her influential role with this new position. Following her retirement from competition after the London Games, Verbeek transitioned her passion and energy into coaching full-time with WCL as the Talent ID Coach.

“Developing Canadian wrestlers and Wrestling Canada Lutte as an association have already benefited from the great perspective, lessons and coaching that Tonya shares each day,” says WCL President Don Ryan. “Our international teams will now benefit even more from her transfer of knowledge and leadership with this new role.”

As the WCL Talent ID Coach, Verbeek was responsible for developing, planning and implementing WCL’s high performance talent identification system and working with the high-performance coaches to improve the integration of our younger athletes into the high-performance athlete pathway. Prior to assuming the Talent ID Coach position, Verbeek served as the Women’s Assistant Coach at the Brock Wrestling Club, one of Canada’s top wrestling programs. Verbeek is a NCCP level 3 certified wrestling coach and currently completing her Advanced Coaching Diploma with NCI-Ontario and holds a Masters in Education from Brock University.

At this important point in the development of wrestling in Canada, High Performance Director (HPD), Leigh Vierling spoke of WCL’s great opportunity in transitioning Verbeek to a different role and continuing to build a great high performance team.

“Tonya not only brings her invaluable experience as a world-class wrestler, but she also brings value as an experienced coach,” said Vierling. “We are excited to continue building the rest of the HP team in the coming months as we approach the start of the new 2020 quadrennial.

As International Coach, a key member of the high performance department, Verbeek will work to support the High Performance Director in the areas of technical leadership, international performance standards and high performance coaching support across the high performance program to ensure continuity of international competitive excellence.

Verbeek, who is based in St. Catharines and will travel as required by her new role, commences her new role immediately and can be reached via email at [email protected].

Please join us in welcoming Tonya to her new role as International Coach at Wrestling Canada Lutte.