Kyla Bremner

Dr Kyla Bremner will become the first female wrestler to represent Australia at the Olympics when she contests the 48kg freestyle division in Beijing in August. Bremner pre-qualified for selection when she won her division at the Oceania trials in Canberra and has since received notification of her Olympic berth from FILA, the sport's governing body, and the Australian Olympic Committee.

She is Australia's best ranked wrestler, finishing 17th of 38 competitors at the World Championships in Azerbaijan. She trains with SU Wrestling club coach Leonid Zaslavsky and although she works as a medical practitioner, Bremner spends much of her own time and money travelling overseas in search of opponents. She took up wrestling as an undergraduate after trying gymnastics, track and field and soccer.

After moving to Sydney from Canberra in 2000, she decided to take a year off from wrestling and also established herself as a talented rock climber. Bremner became serious about wrestling in 2001, attending the ‘01 and 2002 World Wrestling Championships, as well as international training camps and tournaments.

Bremner entered the Graduate medical program in 2003, and volunteered to spend the majority of her final two years at rural clinical schools in Dubbo and Broken Hill, giving herself no chance to pursue her wrestling career. On returning to Sydney full time in 2007to undertake an internship at Bankstown hospital, she returned to training.

Having missed out on the chance to compete at the 2004 Athens Olympics after losing the 2003 national final, Kyla has this time been successful in securing her place at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Kyla Bremner made history in Beijing by being the first female wrestler to represent Australia at the Olympic Games. Bremner, also a practicing medical practitioner, was beaten on points in two rounds by Korea's Hyung-Joo Kim, finishing 17th overall in a competitive field. "To be the first woman to wrestle for Australia is something I'm proud of," Bremner says.

 

• Olympic dream comes true
• Beijing squad could top 20
• Peak Vision: Peak Performance
• Watch Kyla Bremner on the Channel 7 Sunrise breakfast show
• History in the making. An interview with Kyla from the AOC
• Olympic dream on hold

 Send your fan mail to Kyla Bremner

Kyla's Blog

---

Wrestling Adventures

[ Tuesday, 29 July 2008 1:38PM ]

Hi Everyone,

Well I`m in Tokyo for a week of acclimatisation before we head into China on August 4th. It`s hot and humid here so I`m glad we`ve come early to get used to it. It is quite tiring during training but since I still have about 5kg to lose by the August 15th weigh-in, I`m not too sad about all the sweating and lack of appetite!

I`m staying on my own in a hotel in Ikebukuro for the next week, and will be training at the Yoyogi Wrestling Club in Oji. This is the same club where I trained for 2 weeks prior to the Oceanias in February so it`s nice and familiar. The three men on the Australian Wrestling Team are training out at a university about 1.5 hours from where I am based. There are only men wrestling at that university so it`s not such a good training venue for me.

There might be the possibility that all of us will move across to the Japanese National Team Training Centre on August 1st (kind of like our Institute of Sport) since there are apparently 5 international teams who will be acclimatising in Tokyo and will be hosted there. If there are some small women on these teams (maybe Korea and Kazakhstan) then I might go there as well. We`ll see! Regardless, there is a welcoming function hosted by the Japanese on the evening of August 1st so I`m looking forward to that and catching up with some old faces.

Apart from that I`m fit and feeling great. I`ve been having chronic right ankle trouble for about the last 3 months, and an MRI from last week showed that I have a couple of loose bits of bone floating about in the back of the ankle joint. I`m taping my ankle every day, and it`s all under control. Most importantly it doesn`t really affect my wrestling. It just means I`ll need to have surgery after all of this is over :(

We fly to Beijing on August 4th and I can`t wait to get there! I will let you all know what the Olympic Village, the air quality, the team uniform (excepting the secret of the opening ceremony gear!), and Beijing in general is like once I`m there.

In case you`re interested, my profile is up on the www.olympics.com.au website (under athletes or wrestling), and I`d love to receive fan mail from you all! I also have a short video clip (see above) of my appearance on the Channel 7 Sunrise breakfast show from last Friday. It really is me under all that make-up!

Regards to you all,
Kyla

 

[ end of blog ]

---

Kyla's Fan Mail

Bruce Ross writes:
Kyla, Best wishes for your campaign starting tomorrow. Your successes both in sport and academically are a reflection of your extraordinary determination and will to succeed. I am sure that the same qualities will be evident in Beijing. Warm regards, Bruce.
[Fri 15/08/2008 11:37 AM]  

Peter Marks writes:
Hi Kyla, Greetings from your former life as an Honours student (and a very good one, too) from your former Honours supervisor. There I was in the gym at Sydney Uni, dragging my sorry excuse for a body around the place, and there, pinned up on the wall was an article about your success as a wrestler - and an Olympic one to boot. Fantastic. So far it seems that the Aussie women are showing the guys the way in terms of success. And then there’s you, paving the way for other women wrestlers. A Kim Stanley Robinson trailblazer. (You might be pleased to hear that as a result of your thesis I’m teaching his Pacific Edge in my Utopian unit this year.) It’s not about winning medals, of course; it’s about difficult-to-define forms of commitment and inner strength as well as sheer physicality. At least (not being an Olympic athlete - the term itself is a badge of distinction) I assume it is. I expect there’s also that sense of camaraderie that comes even in (or maybe as the result of) hard-nosed competition. Best of luck. I’d say ‘break a leg’, but in the wrestling game that’s possibly the wrong sort of encouragement. If you’re ever back at Sydney Uni, drop by for a low fat coffee.
[Tue 12/08/2008 8:12 PM] 

Don Keast from Broken Hill writes:
Hi Kyla, Greetings from Broken Hill. As the first Australian woman to ever qualify for the Olympics in your sport, you are already a winner. This is where you move on and... 1. Search for your personal best at a new level, 2. Give a whole new meaning to the term "problem-based learning", 3. Above all .... have fun !! (It has to have more laughs than the ED at Bankstown). All the best from the UDRH.
[Fri 8/08/2008 1:31 PM]  

Jocelyn Morris (Don Keast @ Broken Hill UDRH) writes:
Hi Kyla, we will be watching the wrestling and willing you on to do your best. I hope the problems with your ankle are not going to impede your performance. Enjoy the Olympic experience and best wishes for this competition.
[Tue 5/08/2008 5:05 PM]