THE cream of the country's wrestling talent descended on Bolton for the British Junior and Senior Wrestling Championships, and local fighters enjoyed their home comfort, with a host of medals collected.

As well as hundreds of British and Irish wrestlers going for gold there was a real international flavour to the event at Smithills Leisure Centre, with Maltese, Dutch and American competitors turning out to show their skills. The championships also served as a qualifier for the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia's Gold Coast.

Bolton Olympic Wrestling Club and Sharples Wrestling Club won six gold medals each, with the former also collecting six silvers and a bronze, and the latter three silver and three bronze medals.

BOWC's Arin Sekirden (27kg weight category), Liam Husband (31kg), Tommy Costello (31kg), Jack Costello (52kg), Nathan Livesey (74kg) and Mark Johnson (76kg) were all gold medal winners, with Harry Meadows (23kg), Charlie Meadows (31kg), Harvey May (36kg), Cameron Leader (46kg), Lucy McGrath (59kg), Hamza Hussein (52kg) and Anatoliy Porogovskyy (57kg) bringing home silver. Abdullah Hussein won bronze in the 100kg category and Will Jones, Jacob Scott, Joe Higgins-Meadows and Declan Fisher just missed out on the podium, finishing fourth.

Sharples' joyful six were gold medal winners Kelsey Barnes (58kg), Harvey Ridings (36kg), David Siko (38kg), Malachy O'Rourke (39kg), Lewis McGrath (67kg) and George Ramm (57kg). Their efforts were backed up by silver medallists Josh Moore (36kg), Harvey Ridings (39kg) and Ellis Crossley (59kg), and bronze medal winners Georgina Nelthorpe (75kg), Malachi O'Neil (36kg) and Connor Whittle (58kg).

Another rising star from Bolton, Aspull Warriors' Alice Briffa was another winner, in the 26kg category.

"I thought the event was a great advertisement for British wrestling and sport in general in the town of Bolton," said Bolton Olympic Wrestling Club coach Lee Meadows.

"The level of skill and technique displayed by some of the athletes was very impressive and the overall standard of wrestling at the championships was very high indeed. I was particularly impressed by our Bolton wrestlers, not just from our own club, but also from Sharples and Castle Hill Wrestling Clubs respectively.

"This high level of competition will no doubt help our Bolton Olympic Wrestling Club athletes who are scheduled to compete at the Helsinki Open, against some of Europe’s elite wrestlers later this month."

And over at Sharples, Eddy Kavanagh was equally enthused by the standards set by the competitors.

"We entered 12 people and won 12 medals, six of which were gold, three silver and three bronze," he said.

"We are delighted, we had some really good performances, and some of our wrestlers won without conceding any points, which was excellent.

"They are all improving, they put so much hard work and dedication into their training which paid off, as you can see with their results."

Bolton Council's cabinet member for Culture, Youth and Sport, Cllr John Byrne, said: “It was a really good event that was well attended, with around 1,000 people there.

"The atmosphere was electric all day and some good, hard battles took place. Out of 240 competitors, we had around 26 wrestlers from Bolton who won gold, silver or bronze medals – that was an excellent result.

“The event attracted participants from all over the UK and Ireland, Malta, Holland and even one from the US. Everyone involved seemed to enjoy the event, which was supported by sponsors and the University of Bolton.

"Hopefully, we’ll be able to host further competitions in the future."