BOLTON Olympic Wrestling Club measured their talented squad against some of the best amateur clubs in the world at the recent Helsinki Open and they were not found wanting.

A team of eight wrestlers competed on behalf of BOWC at the leading Nordic freestyle wrestling tournament and finished fourth overall in the cadet class.

It was an impressive achievement, only finishing behind Russian teams St Petersburg Olympic and St Petersburg Dush, and HPM, from Finland, who all fielded much bigger squads.

In total, almost 500 wrestlers took part in the competition, representing 64 different teams.

And coach Lee Meadows had nothing but pride for the BOWC contingent, which included Craig Pilling, Mark Johnson, Stefan Gradwell, Abdullah Hussain, James Smith, Nathan Livesey, Lucy McGrath, and Charlie Meadows.

"I was really impressed with how well all of our wrestlers fought against some very strong competitors from all over the world," said Lee Meadows.

"Some of them have only just moved up into the cadet category, and they were faced with wrestling much older athletes, but they all rose to the challenge and are a real credit to our club."

Pilling, who won a bronze medal at the last Commonwealth Games, added: "To finish fourth in the overall cadet team category is a massive achievement for the club, especially considering that we didn’t take a full team.

"We are hoping to return next year with more of our squad members, to compete for even more silverware."