By ADEM SARICAOGLU
MAINTAINING your status as one of the best up and coming wrestlers in the country is hard work.
Just ask 18-year-old Williamstown resident Aaron Maher.
In what has already been a busy and so far fruitful year, Maher has managed to collect three major gongs and booked himself a trip to Bulgaria in August for the Junior World Championships.
In January, Maher collected gold at the national titles in Queensland in the 60kg division, before doubling up in the same weight division three months later at the Oceania Championships in Tumon, Guam.
Then, just last weekend at the Australia Cup meet at Coolaroo, near Broadmeadows, Maher completed his trio of golds with a win in the 62kg junior event.
But, despite all that success, don’t think Maher’s been cruising through with an easy ride to get those kinds of results.
For most of the seven years he’s been wrestling, Maher has trained six days a week and juggles two part-time jobs to support himself.
Naturally, such hard work takes a significant toll on his body.
“I get pretty sore, and I have to do a lot of recovery,” Maher explained. “I get massages every week or two and I go to the beach a lot and do ice baths on the beach.
“It pretty much kills my body because I don’t do only wrestling, I also do a bit of jujitsu and I do some boxing with my dad as well.
“I do a lot of training and my body’s pretty much screwed every four or five days, so I have to take a day off and do a recovery session and then start training again, and then just repeat that.”
Yet, as tiresome as that sounds, Maher wouldn’t have it any other way.
As Maher slowly enters the senior ranks in coming years he’s eying off a shot at the big time, and hopes to score a place at next year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
But first he’s looking forward to testing himself against the world’s best juniors later this year.
“I’m definitely not going there to lose but it’s definitely going to be a really tough competition, a lot harder than anything I’ve been in before,” Maher said.
“I reckon I can do all right, I’m not saying that I can’t beat them, but I’ll definitely see what I can do.”
A former Williamstown Soccer Club junior, Maher likes to get down and support the boys as often as he can.
However, having enjoyed it that little bit more, he eventually decided to commit fully to wrestling.
“Soccer I enjoyed, but with wrestling I was always more serious because of my coach (Sam Parker), he’s a really intense guy.”
And, as you would expect, he has no regrets about that decision.
