There isn’t much Carson Lee has left to conquer in Canadian wrestling after winning medals and honours in national and worldwide events. Starting this fall, Lee will take on a new challenge when he joins the university wrestling circuit.
Lee, a Hapnot Collegiate student, Canadian Youth Olympian and United World Wrestling (UWW) Cadet World Championship medallist, will join the University of Saskatchewan Huskies next September.
The decision is hardly shocking. Lee’s older brother Hunter has already made a name for himself with the school, claiming titles and accolades of his own on the mat throughout his freshman and sophomore years.
In addition, both brothers trained often with the Huskies wrestling team as high schoolers, driving down for days at a time for sessions with the elite athletes.
“It’s going to be good. The only time I get to train with the university guys a lot is when I go down for like weeks at a time, just training there then coming back here and training with the guys here. It’d be nice to do just full training at a high level year-round,” said Carson at a Rotary Club meeting last week.
“I think I went to my first university practice when I was in Grade 9. I go down there for like a week, then I come back here for a week, then it’ll be another week down there. A week on, week off.”
Speaking at the Rotary meeting, Lee ran down his recent accomplishments. In his eyes, one of Lee’s most memorable recent events was his trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina late last year as Canada’s only male wrestler at the IOC Youth Olympics. Buenos Aires has been a stamping ground for Lee in the past. He won his first-ever Pan-American Championship medal in the city in 2017.
“We were there for 21 days and I got to meet a bunch of guys from all over Canada who share the same kind of passion as me and got to live with them and train with a bunch of them,” he said.
While in Argentina, Lee finished fourth and had a chance to train with a Cuban athlete in an impromptu international workout.
“He just kind of came and found me when I was training and wanted to drill with me.”
Lee’s training regimen also included a visit to the US Olympic Training Centre in Colorado Springs, Colo., learning under former American Olympic gold medallist Kevin Jackson and Canadian national team wrestler Jamie Cox.
Over the past year, Lee has strived to improve his skills, heading into international and domestic events with new information, approaches and techniques.
“One of the coaches who was with me on both World team trips – when I got the third place finish – he said it was amazing to see how far I’d come,” Lee said.
