There's an old saying that it's better to be lucky than good, and Sunny Dhinsa probably wouldn't argue with that.
At the Pan American Olympic qualifying tournament in Orlando, Fla. on the weekend, Dhinsa needed a top-two finish in the heavyweight (120 kg) division to earn a berth to the London Summer Games in Greco-Roman wrestling.
The 18-year-old phenom from Abbotsford ran into difficulty even before he hit the mat, though – in a random drawing to set the eight-man bracket, he drew American Dremiel Byers in the first round. Byers is a former world champion, and he beat Dhinsa in two hard-fought rounds, 1-0 and 3-0.
With an Olympic berth out of reach, Dhinsa wrapped up the event in fifth place following a loss to Ramon Garcia of the Dominican Republic. In the aftermath, he felt that if he'd ended up on the other side of the draw from Byers, he might have qualified.
"It's kind of stupid, because everything depends on the draw, depends on your luck," said Dhinsa, a W.J. Mouat Secondary grad who is a freshman at Simon Fraser University. "I knew the American was good, because he's a full-time Greco guy.
"I'm not upset with my performance – I did what I could. I'm upset with the draw. But I can't do anything about it."
There are still two opportunities for Canadian wrestlers to qualify for the Olympic Games. China will host an international Olympic qualifier April 27-29, while Finland will host another May 4-6. In China, the top three athletes will punch their tickets to London, while in Finland only the top two will qualify.
But Dhinsa isn't sure at this point whether he'll attend either of those meets. The Greco-Roman discipline, which forbids holds below the waist, is something he does in his spare time – he's a freestyle specialist. And he's kept an extremely busy competition schedule this season, including a triple-gold performance at the junior/senior national championships in St. Catharines, Ont. two weeks ago.
"We'll see what happens when I get back on the mat," he said. "I'm taking a week off right now – we'll see what the coaches say, whether I'll go to China or not, and we'll go from there.
"I'm thinking 2016 (Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is mine, for sure."