Future Olympic talent is leaking out of Richmond into neighbouring municipalities.
That’s the view of Richmond Olympian and Commonwealth gold medal-winning wrestler Arjan Bhullar, whose family have been running a free kids club for the sport on their farm in the east of the city since the 1980s.
Bhullar said his family’s club — the only wrestling program in Richmond and run out of a converted barn — is at full capacity, 30 or so kids, and is constantly turning children away, so much so that he has been trying in vain for years to get the City of Richmond to find them a space suitable to grow wrestling in the city.
And case in point, said Bhullar – who competed for Canada in the 2012 London Olympics – is 15-year-old Richmond-born wrestling star Cali Espinosa, who learned to wrestle at the Bhullar Wrestling Club aged 13 but has been leaving the city’s boundaries almost every day for the last year to realize her full potential in a custom facility in Coquitlam.
Espinosa — who captured bronze at the Pan American Cadet Championships in Lima, Peru last month and won gold in the Canadian nationals in the spring — was honoured by the Richmond club for her achievements with a presentation last Sunday.
Bhullar predicts a bright future for the young wrestler, but fears more talent could be slipping through Richmond’s fingers or even go undiscovered without proper facilities in the city.
“The city has multiple facilities for other sports, so why not wrestling? Bhullar questioned.
“We’re willing to share with other sports; it’s not like we’re asking for millions of dollars all for us.
“Look at what Cali (Espinosa) has done; but she had to leave Richmond to achieve it. Her first experience of wrestling was at our place, and we’re proud of that.
“But when we realized she had talent, we kind of told her that she needed to be challenged and needed to go elsewhere to achieve that.”
“We could produce multiple Calis. If the city’s mandate is to grow the sport, then this is the chance to do it.”
Mylene Espinosa, Cali’s mom, said her daughter simply needed a place to spar properly and it just wasn’t available in Richmond.
“During the school year, she and her brother (14) take the SkyTrain to Coquitlam for their wrestling,” said Mylene, who lives in South Arm, explaining her kids go to St. Patrick’s Regional Secondary in Vancouver, where there is a wrestling program.
“She travels there five times a week right now to Coquitlam, training for the World Cadet Championships in Tbilisi, Georgia on Sept. 22. “I’d obviously rather she was able to do all of this in Richmond.”
Bhullar said at least 3,200 square feet of training space is needed for a wrestling facility, which he said could accommodate other sports, such as martial arts or yoga.
“We did approach the (Olympic) Oval, but the numbers they threw at us just didn’t make sense,” added Bhullar.
“We’re not looking for a free ride. If the city came to us and said ‘here’s the space and the rent is this amount,’ we would come up with a business plan to make it work.”
Serena Lusk, the city’s senior manager of recreation and sports services, said Richmond has a strong commitment to sport in general, although admitting wrestling is the only sport, that she knows of, that is looking to be accommodated in Richmond.
“There are capital and operating costs to consider,” said Lusk, who has been in talks with Bhullar in the past.
“We are aware of the benefits of wrestling and the development it offers kids and we have met with Arjan a number of times.
“We looked at facilities in other cities and we continue to look for opportunities. I would encourage him to continue to work with the (Richmond Sports Council) and we are still very happy to work with Arjan on this also.”
The challenge, like most things in Richmond, according to Lusk, is finding a space that can, for the most part, be dedicated to wrestling.
“If the desire is to have a dedicated space, then that does make it more difficult, because (wrestling) mats then can’t be pulled up,” she said.
“We simply don’t have the square footage to accommodate that in Richmond.
“This hasn’t fallen off the city’s radar, however, and, of course, we would like to develop athletes (such as Espinosa) at home with full facilities for all sports.”
Lusk said she couldn’t provide even a ballpark figure for any capital costs for a wrestling facility, as “it would depend on too many different factors.”
Bhullar pointed to the fact that he and his family put a lot of energy into organizing and showcasing the sport in 2014 and 2015, when hosting the Western Canadian Age Class Championships at the Oval, attracting more than 600 participants for the two-day event.
“We didn’t do it this year, because we got frustrated putting so much energy into it,” he said.
“We wanted to grow the sport, the club and the tournament, but didn’t feel we were getting much support.
“We got excited about the new facility at Minoru; I thought we could maybe get in there? But we were told the space had already been allocated.
“There seems to be a lot of politics going on behind the scenes and the conversation (with the city) stopped.”
