USA Beach Wrestling Has Stellar Showing
Accra Beach, Barbados– USA Beach Wrestling brought a strong team to this year’s Barbados Beach Wrestling Open Championships, and the performance put on by the United States delegation put a pretty punctuation mark on this year’s season. Multiple Americans won their respective weight divisions, as well as taking the top two spots in the senior grand championships.
Leading the way for the United States were Jamison Shea (90kg) and Wayne Lamont (80kg), both from New York. Also turning in a strong performance in the senior competition was Noah Perdue of Florida (80kg). The US delegation also featured a strong contingent in the high school division, consisting of Jonah Perdue, Michiah Gillins, Donavan Jenkins, Lincoln Derby, and Javin Taylor. Nicholas Sosa was the US team’s only entry in the kids division.
Wayne Lamont got the action started by gutting out a tough 3-2 victory over home crowd favorite Justin Boyce of Barbados. Lamont then found a higher gear for the rest of the day and powered to 5-0 and 4-0 wins in his remaining pool matches. Lamont kept his foot on the gas for the championship semi-finals, quickly defeating 70kg champ Stevy Lahaye of Martinique 3-0 to move on to the grand championship. The final bout of the day saw Lamont face off against teammate Jamison Shea, and despite Shea’s size advantage, Lamont found a way and came away with the title of Grand Champion. He was also the recipient of the Big Throw of the Day award and the Most Outstanding Wrestler award.
US Sweeps HS Division
Jamison Shea squared off against Jaheen Weekes-Blackman of Barbados for a best two of three in the 90kg division. Shea scored 3-0 and 3-1 victories to advance to the championship semi-final against the impressive heavyweight winner from Barbados Matthew Arindell. The bout between Arindell and Shea was a battle, with Shea prevailing to make it through to the grand championship match. Shea finished 3-1 for the day, and was key to the United States team title in the event.
In the high school division, athletes from the Youth Impact Center in Florida had a clean sweep in all three weight divisions. Lincoln Derby emerged as the lightweight division winner, sweeping all three of his matches including a gritty 2-1 win over teammate Donavan Jenkins in the final round. Jenkins finished 2nd in the division while Michiah Gillins rounded out the medal sweep with a third place finish. In the middleweight division Javin Taylor defeated athletes from Martinique and Barbados to claim the top spot, while Jonah Perdue also claimed top honors in the high school heavyweight division. He also took two of three exhibition bouts against 70kg senior division athlete Stevy Lahaye from Martinique.
Sosa Scores Fastest Fall
In the kids division Nicholas Sosa of Florida put on an impressive performance in his first beach competition, earning top honors in two separate divisions and picking up the award for fastest fall of the tournament. Sosa was also a SE Regional champion in greco-roman.
For full results from this year’s event CLICK HERE
