SA wrestler Steyn de Lange wins bronze at World Junior Championships

JOHANNESBURG - South African wrestler Steyn de Lange won a bronze medal in the under-92kg freestyle at the World Junior Championships in Ufa, Russia on Wednesday.

De Lange is now the second South African wrestler to ever win a medal at the Junior Wrestling Championships. Pieter-Hendrik van der Schyf won a bronze medal in 2006.

"Steyn becomes only the second wrestler in history to win a medal at Junior World Championships when he defeated Muhammed Gimri from Turkey in a match ended in an 8-6 score," said the South African Wrestling Federation.

The youngster and his coach, Jan Roets, from Limpopo Wrestling Association are competing at the tournament, hosted by United World Wrestling, with more than 500 athletes across 52 different countries, battling it out for 120 medals.

This is the first Junior World Championship since the COVID-19 outbreak.

"The road to the bronze medal match was through some formidable opponents, his first match was a hard and brutal match against Mayer from Germany. The next match in the 1/4 matchup was against Krisztian Angyal from Hungry, who was no match for De Lange. Steyn moved to the semifinal in a 10-0 win against the wrestler from Hungary. The semifinal against Hajiloueianm from Iran knocked De Lange out of the run for a gold medal, and put him straight into the battle for bronze," the South African Wrestling Federation said.

The youngster started wrestling at the age of five and 15 years later he's still wrestling at Ion Baciu Wrestling Club in Limpopo under the watchful eye of his coach Jan Roets.

The South African Wrestling Federation said it's proud of the athlete and that the sport needed icons to look up to and that he was just that.

"This is a huge achievement for us. Medals at world championships are very rare, as mentioned before Steyn became only the second wrestler in South African history to win a medal at Junior Worlds. Previously Pieter-Hendrik van der Schyf won a junior bronze medal in 2006. The sport needs icons to look up to and Steyn is a well-disciplined, extremely hard-working athlete with lots of talent. He is still very young in wrestling terms and has a very bright future ahead of him."

The two-time continental champion will compete at the upcoming national trials for the Commonwealth Championships, with his ultimate goal being to make the Paris 2024 Olympics team.

"He will partake in the national trials for the Commonwealth Championships that will take place in South Africa in December this year. Should he qualify here, he could stand a chance to be selected by Sascoc in his first multi-code team for South Africa, as this will be the qualification tournament for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. His ultimate goal is to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics."

The World Junior Wrestling Championship is being hosted in Ufa, the capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan, between 16 and 22 August. South Africa sent two athletes to represent the country.

"We only selected two wrestlers to the team competing at the world championships. Arno van Zijl was selected in the 79kg Freestyle division and Steyn De Lange in the 92kg freestyle division".