Is this the year Torrey Toribio redeems his years of hard training and the lessons from hard losses?
Mentally tougher and grounded by hard-won patience, the senior John Oliver wrestler and 2013 cadet national champion begins his fifth and final quest to win a provincial gold medal.
Toughness, he said, “Is telling yourself how hard you work and how you’re not letting this one guy in front of you stop you. You have to use these matches as pay days and cash in all your hard work.”
Toribio weigh in this afternoon for the regional zone tournament and for the fifth year in a row, will likely earn the top B.C. ranking for the 57 or 60 kilogram weight class. But for the first year, the sculpted five-foot-seven, 18-year-old Toribio wants that No. 1 rank to end with a first place finish at the provincial championships, scheduled for Feb. 26 to 28 in Abbotsford.
“It is on my list to win a B.C. title,” he said. “If I don’t win, I will be upset but it hasn’t bothered me from my previous years because I’ve always been able to grow. After losing […] I’ve always come back stronger. I try to learn from those losses.”
Since Grade 8, Toribio has won a medal every year at provincials. The three times he’s lost in a semi-final, he’s come back to win bronze. When he made the final last year, he lost to an older wrestler and still came away with silver.
“I was expected to win. I lost because of nerves.” Of the semi-final losses as a junior, he said, “I was rushing to get into the finals.”
When he’s gone on to nationals in Ontario, Toribio has inevitably met some of the same wrestlers who’d gotten the better of him. “I’d beat them there,” he said.
Toribio has not yet chosen a university for next year and is open to offers. The A-student wants to wrestle and compete at the post-secondary level.
His record this season includes wins at the Roberts Rumble, Abby Invitational, SFU’s elite War on the Floor and the Miri Piri championship. Most recently, he also won the Western Canadian title in the 68 kg class. Toribio also won gold in his class at the B.C. Summer Games.
“He’s run away with everything,” said John Oliver coach Chris Fuoco. “Pound for pound, he’s the best kid. He’s probably the best kid in the country.”
Toribio is 31-3 this season. Two losses were during a tour to Washington State where his freestyle form was at odds with the hosts’ folkstyle wrestling, which is practised in the NCAA. His third loss came at the hands of the national high school champion from Japan.
“He’s organized. He’s a good communicator. His teammates look up to him,” said Fuoco. “He makes me look good.”
On a tour with the national team to Iowa, where wrestling is what hockey is to many Canadians, Toribio soaked in the Americans’ grit and added a few intangibles to his growing skill set.
“I learned a lot about toughness,” he said. “We’re more technical but they have something you can’t really teach — being tough and grinding it out. It’s like a dog fight, you have to be hungry every time you go on the mat. You have to believe in the work you’ve put in.”
It’s time for Toribio to take that hard work out of the bank and cash it in for gold.
