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Wrestling.Ca: Where are they now? – Bob Molle

Tuesday, January 18, 2022 - 02:34 By Wrestling Canada

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Bob Molle has lived an incredible life, although he says he is “just getting going.” His accomplishments include a silver medal in wrestling at the 1984 Olympics, two Grey Cup championships as a player for Winnipeg Blue Bombers, national championships as a wrestler and coach, an author, a public speaker and now a successful business coach. Molle explains that when he looks back at his life, what means the most to him are the relationships he developed along the way.

Born and raised in Saskatoon, Molle remembers that it was his high school coach that introduced him to the sport of wrestling. While he had always wrestled in the backyard as a kid, he had not considered formally participating in the sport until he was asked to try out. He loved the sport from the word “go”.

Wrestling became Bob’s third competitive sport, alongside football and hockey. It was not long before Molle’s affection for wrestling grew and his passion and abilities began to shine when the coach of the University of Saskatchewan team invited him to join their practices.

In 1980, Molle lost in the final of the national championship to his now lifelong friend, Nick Kiniski.  After the match, Kiniski suggested he come out to Simon Fraser University (SFU) so they could train together. Molle wanted to play football too, so he saw SFU as a “double opportunity.”

Molle continued to compete in both sports at SFU and was the first student to receive full scholarships in two sports. After capturing his first two (of four) national championships, World Cup and Pan-American Games bronze medals, Molle went on to win a silver medal at the 1984 Olympics – all by the age of 21. The following year, he made the transition to professional football after being drafted in the first round of the 1985 CFL draft by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

Three short years later, Molle and the Bombers won the Grey Cup. He had an Olympic medal and a Grey Cup championship by the age of 26. While he had found success in both individual and team sports, it was the lessons from his wrestling career that propelled him to his next challenge. “In wrestling, you are on your own. When you win or lose you are by yourself. You can’t say it was someone’s fault or we could have played better as a team. In wrestling, you have to look in the mirror. There is beauty in that because you have to ask yourself how can I do better?”

Pursuing goals is something Molle takes to heart. His next challenge was taking over the wrestling program at the University of Manitoba. Molle explains that while he did know if he would be a good coach, the more he did it, the more naturally it came to him. When he traveled with the football team, he took the opportunity to recruit top talent to the university. This led to two national championships.

After his football career, Molle took the lessons of strong relationships and finding good talent to the corporate world as a business coach. He knew that mutual trust was key to teambuilding and success. These were the keys to helping his clients and building his own business through referrals.

Today, as a business coach, Molle helps companies build solid internal relationships and strong connections with stakeholders to whom they are responsible. He recruits talent and helps build teams that work. He works with a number of companies across the country and no matter what the business, the key is finding the right people to work together. Like any team, Bob starts with an assessment of the roster, the talent level and looks for gaps in communication or execution. With the right people in place and an understanding of how they can complement each other, he helps take his clients to the next level.

When Molle looks back on all his accomplishments, it is the relationships he formed that stand out as his biggest highlight. “I am nearly 60 and still have many of the relationships I made during my time in wrestling. I always say once you are part of the wrestling family, you are always part of the family.” He continues to support those in the wrestling community in any way that he can.

Molle has taken the lessons he first learned in the wrestling room and added to them each step of his life journey and no plans of ever retiring. He makes time for the things he enjoys in life like his family and exercise, but remains focused on his continued personal growth. He is always asking himself, “What can I do better?”

For more information on Canadian wrestling, visit https://wrestling.ca or follow them on Instagram and Twitter!

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Wiebe inspires next gen at UWW-IIS camp in India

Saturday, February 15, 2025 - 08:21 By Vinay Siwach

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KARNATAKA, India (February 15) -- Erica WIEBE (CAN), the 2016 Rio Olympic champion, usually doesn't take it around but for her India trip, she made sure to pack her gold medal from Rio.

Call it luck, the gold medal turned out to be the highlight of her trip.

In India for a masterclass at the international women's wrestling camp organized by the Inspire Institute of Sport and United World Wrestling, Wiebe got mobbed by 50 young wrestlers as she showed them her medal. Wrestlers from Jordan, Estonia, South Africa, Mauritius, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and hosts India, all part of the camp, wanted to touch it, feel it and may be keep it.

"To see the looks on their faces and in their bodies responding to what it felt like to hold the kind of weight of your dream in your hand, I got emotional with them," Wiebe says. "It was so surreal for me to share the medal with the athletes because it brought me back to where I was at that time, and how it felt like winning an Olympic gold medal was just like this impossible dream that would never happen. It's really important for me to come here and do things like this to remind these women that, these crazy, unimaginable things are real. They can happen and to encourage them to continue to dream big."

No wrestler could walk away without a photo. A few even got emotional as they took the medal in their hands.

"God, I don't know how many times I have dreamt about that in the night," U17 world bronze medalist Lisette BOTTKER (EST) says. "When I got the medal on my hands, I was also trying not to cry but the feeling is awesome."

Maya QUTAISHAT (JOR) adds, "It seemed like the dreams of most of us wrestlers in front of us. Like getting the Olympic gold medal."

UWW and IIS organized the camp for wrestlers from around the world from January 15 to 31. It was hosted by IIS at it's world class facility in Vijayanagar, a township in Ballari district of north Karnataka, India.

Wiebe held a masterclass for the wrestlers along with training sessions with IIS head coach Amir TAVOKKALIAN, a former world silver medalist and Asian champion.

"It's a really amazing development opportunity for a young wrestlers from all around the world," Wiebe said. "There's several nations here, and it's so incredible to see the level of talent and passion of these young athletes. At the camp this week, we've had a number of sessions kind of leveraging different unique styles, having the different countries lead different warmups. We're here at the Inspire Institute of Sport which is a phenomenal world class facility. We don't have anything like this in Canada, there's very few facilities like this in the world. It's really exciting to see that India has this.

"Not only that, they have this for their athletes training, but they've invited many countries around the world to share in this moment and to leverage the resources that are available here on this site."

IIS President Manisha MALHOTRA also visited the camp and threw some light on the partnership with UWW to grow the sport.

"We're very passionate about the sport from an Indian ecosystem point of view," Malhotra said. "But what we realized is that, we need to start looking outside India to bring in expertise, look in partnerships. With that in mind, I think there was no better partner than UWW.

"They’ve done a phenomenal job with wrestling worldwide and growing the sport very well. The idea was to have a very good mix of people, whether they are from a very developed wrestling nation or from an underdeveloped wrestling nation, it needs to be a common platform where people can extract some sort of benefit for everybody. That was the main premise with what we worked with."

Apart from the training, wrestlers at the camp used the high performance center at IIS and indulged in sightseeing.

"Training here is very strong. We come out of the mat sweating a lot, and it's very tough," Qutaishat said, "The girls here are very high level. When I wrestle them, I learn a lot of techniques and so many things that I usually don't see back in my country. But I get to explore more as I go out to the camps."

Wiebe had an advice for all wrestlers, especially coming from smaller countries to the development camps.

"I told the athletes the goals are: to have fun, and to get better," Wiebe said. "And how do you do that? You find strength on the edge of failure. You have to put yourself on the line. Wrestling is not easy. You see it on the athletes bodies. They're pushing themselves to their limits, physically and mentally. They are tired. I remember being that way as an athlete. You always have to find another level to yourself."