Marais overcomes obstacles to win SA’s only gold at Wrestling Championships

Marais claimed the only gold medal for South Africa as she competed in the women’s under 20 (72 KG) division to podium at the 39th African Wrestling Championships in Alexandria, Egypt which wrapped up on the weekend.

Speaking to SABC Sport, Marais said she needed to ensure that her weight was under control in order to avoid disqualification at the weigh-in as well as being mentally prepared to take on the best in Africa.

The Johannesburg-born athlete broke down how each of her matches at the competition went, comparing it to an out-of-body experience.

"I had Angola first and she was definitely the strongest girl physically, and when she took hold of me I realised that she's very strong. I had to take a deep breath to combat her strength with my technique, and I figured out where her weak points were and I managed to throw her and then pin her.

"Match two came along and it was Egypt, and at this point Egypt had beaten Angola and Algeria so I knew that if I beat Egypt, I will have secured my gold spot basically. I wrestled the Egyptian opponent and I won 10-0. I got off that mat a little bit in shock, I obviously trusted my training but I didn't trust it that much and I then realised that I'm actually at their level."

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The 18-year-old admitted that although she has a signature move called “duck-unders”, in training she rarely pulls it off, and during competition she pulls out random moves which has been dubbed by others as the “Eryn move” which are random moves. 

She conceded that she never trains these moves, however, they randomly come out during competition. 

"I love my duck unders, which is basically when you duck under the person and then come back up to pick them up, but then again in competition I seem to pull out the most random moves that I have never trained before in my life, and they just work."

Marais’ who now lives in Cape Town says her focus will now shift to qualifying for the Commonwealth Wrestling Championships which coincidently takes place in Cape Town from 4-6 December 2026. The venue is yet to be announced…