Tamil Canadian Siblings crowned 2024 National Wrestling Champions

Tamil siblings Aaharen Piranavan and Adsaya Piranavan from Pickering, have been crowned National winners at the 2024 Canadian Wrestling Championships (in the Cadet U17 category), which kicked off on March 14th.

The High school students are members of Durham’s Team impact wrestling Club. Adsaya competes in the 49kg category, whilst Aaharen in the 51kg.

15-year-old Aaharen, a 3 times Pan American grappling champion, started his wrestling journey to improve his strength and technique in Jujitsu. His parents enrolled in him in Martial arts at the tender age of 4. Once his heart was firmly in wrestling, he quickly rose up the rank to become an Ontario provisional star, then onto National Champion. Aaharen wants to follow a route into sports medicine to work with fellow athletes. He hopes to return to Jujitsu in the future.

The siblings’ friendly rivalry motivated Adsaya, the eldest of the siblings to also take up Jujitsu at the age of 7. She moved into wrestling and grew to national silver medalist in 2023, before earning a gold this week. Adsaya also enjoys bharatanatyam and would like to study mathematics at university.

Nurturing two Canadian National Champions is no small feat, and wouldn’t have been possible without the commitment and sacrifices made by their incredible parents Piranavan Nantheeswarar and Japalini Piranavan, who arrived in Canada as immigrants from Sri Lanka.

49 year old Piranavan works in customer service for Bell, grew up playing cricket and rugby. We spoke to him about their wrestling journey, and the financial commitments made to nuture two future Canadian stars, whilst managing a household. Something which will resonate with many Tamil parents in the diaspora.

“Their training is rigorous, and the schedule will run from Monday to Friday at their high school, and with their club. During the weekends they will be at the gym. Our time and money will go towards training, competition entry fees, sessions with the chiropractor to build their strength and agility, accommodation, and in some cases flights abroad. For example, we have the Pan American Championships in the Dominican Republic coming up, which is going to cost upwards of $5000. As parents we made this commitment to provide opportunities for our children.”

Congratulations to the entire family!

Aaharen Accolades

U17 51kg Canadian National Champion

3 x Provincial Champion 2023 & 2024

2 x OFSAA Champion 2023 and 2024 Ontario Federation of School Athletic Association (OFSAA)

2022 U15 National Silver Medalist.

3 x PAN Kids Jiu-Jitsu Champion 2018 2019 and 2020

4 x North American Grappling Association Champion 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020

Adsaya Accolades

2024 U17 Gold Medalist

2023 U17 National Silver Medalist

2023 and 2024 Provincial Champion

2023 US North East Regional Bronze Medalist

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