"I've improved a lot, and I know I'm going to improve a lot more," says David Tremblay (rear), during Montreal Wrestling Club workout. Photograph by: JOHN KENNEY, THE GAZETTE

By Arpon Basu, Montreal Gazette Published: February 1, 2007 When you've won the national championship three years in a row, it would seem there is little room for improvement. But since wrestler David Tremblay moved to Montreal, hardly a day goes by when he doesn't get even better. Tremblay, 18, in his first year at Vanier College, came here in August to train under the watchful eye of Montreal Wrestling Club head coach Victor Zilberman.

His first six years in the sport were spent being coached by his father, David Sr., in his hometown of Windsor, Ont., and Tremblay won a cadet and two juvenile national championships in his final three years wrestling for his father.

"Coming here, I thought I had pretty good technique, but I've already changed a lot of it and it's working," Tremblay said. "I've improved a lot, and I know I'm going to improve a lot more."

Despite having a wrestling coach for a father, Tremblay did not get involved in the sport until he hit the seventh grade. "It was a sport where I knew if I trained harder and pushed myself harder than the rest of them, I could succeed," Tremblay said. "But it was also the fighting part. I liked that." Two years later, Tremblay was the Ontario cadet champion and finished third at the nationals. He won his first national title in grand fashion a year later, when he won all his matches by mercy rule after running up 10-0 leads, and he was named the tournament's outstanding cadet wrestler.

David Tremblay (right) accepts from his coach Victor Zilberman the award for Most Improved Player at the 2005-06 Vanier Athletics Awards Banquet

"I was thinking then that I was obviously on the right track," Tremblay said.

In Grade 11, Tremblay repeated his performance at the nationals, except at the juvenile level, and he was also the lone Canadian to win his weight class at his first international event, in France.

Last year, on top of winning the Canadian juvenile championship, Tremblay also finished second at the junior nationals despite being a year underage.

Those performances led to a frenzied recruiting campaign by the top wrestling clubs in the country, but Tremblay's father suggested he come to Montreal to be coached by the experienced Zilberman, and it's proved to be sound advice.

Tremblay has taken part in five tournaments since moving here, and he's won them all.

"My dad's watched me at a couple of tournaments and already he's seen a change in the way I wrestle," Tremblay said. "I really have to thank him for telling me about this club."

One of the main benefits of training here has been Tremblay's daily exposure to world-class talent like fellow club member and former world champion Guivi Sissaouri.

"Every practice, he shocks me with something new," Tremblay said, still somewhat awestruck by his new training partner. "Just being able to train with him is making me so much quicker."

Tremblay has two years of junior elegibility remaining and hopes to make the jump to the senior national team immediately after, with an eye on the 2008 or 2012 Olympics.

At the rate he's improving, he shouldn't be counted out.

Original URL: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/athlete/story.html?id=88c3efea-b144-4555-a89b-df95df8d687e

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