Abbotsford’s Nishan Randhawa will represent Canada in wrestling at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, which occur in Birmingham, England from July 28 to Aug. 8.
Randhawa was one of 12 athletes named to the wrestling team and one of five wrestlers from B.C.
The W.J. Mouat grad formerly competed at SFU but now competes with the Burnaby Mountain Wrestling Club. Back in 2016 Randhawa became the first wrestler to win Canadian junior and senior national wrestling titles in the same year.
MWREST | @SFUWrestling Nishan Randhawa wins Canadian junior & senior national titles https://t.co/JqHF9CeHZL
— SFU Athletics (@sfu_athletics) March 26, 2017
RELATED: Abbotsford wrestlers storm podium at high school provincials
The 25-year-old finished fifth in his class at the 2022 Senior Pan-American Championships in Mexico in May. He qualified for the Commonwealth Games after finishing first in his senior 97 kilograms division at the event, which ran from May 26 to 29 in Edmonton.
SFU wrestling head coach Justin Abdou stated that Randhawa was a successful wrestler at the school, but was unlucky at times due to injuries and the fact that he was an undersized heavyweight in the NCAA. There is not a 97 kg division in NCAA. He competed at SFU from 2016 to 2020 and red-shirted in 2015. Randhawa still occasionally trains at SFU and serves as a mentor to young wrestlers.
@WrestlingCanada Junior World BRONZE medallist Nishan Randhawa returns home! pic.twitter.com/6NJQCRv4g6
— Wrestling Canada Lutte (@WrestlingCanada) August 18, 2015
Four of the wrestlers on Team Canada at the Commonwealth Games are from SFU including Randhawa, Surrey’s Ana Godinez-Gonzalez, Burnaby’s Justina Di Stasio and Mississauga’s Patrik Leder. Other BC athletes include: Coquitlam’s Darthe Capellan and Surrey’s Amar Dhesi.
Godinez-Gonzalez formerly competed at UFV when they had a wrestling team and is the younger sister of UFC star Lupita Godinez.
For more information, visit wrestling.ca.