This referee wrestles the facts for you
EMMARENTIA – Bianca Taljaarb, main referee at Bears Wrestling Club shares on journey in the part.
What is it like being a referee in wrestling?
Bianca Taljaarb shared her experiences in that role and how it had taught her that an individual’s commitment to a group effort, made the teamwork.
After being introduced to wrestling in 2019, she immediately took action to participate as a referee in the sport. Since then she has completed numerous courses and she is currently graded as a national level one referee for the South African Wrestling Federation. “I was a referee at the South African Nationals that took place in October 2021 in Pretoria,” she said.
She is also the main referee and secretary-general for Emmarentia-based Bears Wrestling Club, where you can often find her spurring on the little ones as they practise at Marks Park Sports Club during the week. Coupled with that, she is also the president of the Central Gauteng Wrestling Association.
Though she had always been involved in several sports be it netball, bowls, tennis or badminton, when she was introduced to wrestling she was immediately intrigued by the determination, hard work and fitness of the participants in the sport.
“I was intrigued by the fact that there was a sport of which I had no knowledge, and of which so many other people do not have the knowledge, and I thought that becoming a part of wrestling as a referee, would enable me to understand and comprehend the sport and inform others of this amazing sport that creates individual characters like no other sport.”
Her role has taught her the importance of how being cognisant of one’s attitude and effort can have an effect on teamwork in any sport. “Individual commitment plays a very important part in any aspect of one’s life. There will always be challenges whether in life, whether in wrestling, but no challenge should be big enough that people cannot work together for the good of wrestling.”`
As people have little knowledge of the sport, misconceptions are sure to be formed about it. “People also sometimes have misconceptions that you need to be built extremely good and weigh a certain specific weight. That is not true, there are weight categories for everyone.”
Taljaarb said in the past there were no women wrestlers, but now there were many and ‘wrestling is a sport for everyone.
