Asnage Castelly wrestling at the World Championships (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)Asnage Castelly will be pulling double duty at the 2016 Rio Olympics. The assistant wrestling coach at a Massachusetts two-year college will not only be wrestling freestyle for his native Haiti, but also carrying the Haitian flag at the Opening Ceremony on Aug. 5.
Castelly, who coaches at Springfield Technical Community College, will lead the delegation of eleven athletes in the Parade of Nations as Haiti's only wrestler at the 2016 Games… and, in fact, the country's first wrestler to make it to the Olympics.
Two other wrestling coaches at STCC, Anibal and Alberto Nieves, will coach Castelly in Rio, who hopes to become the first Haitian to win an Olympic medal in 88 years.
The 37-year-old Castelly was surprised but happy to be named the flagbearer for Haiti.
"I did not see it coming," Castelly told WWLP-TV. "I didn't see it happening, but I'm honored and grateful."
Castelly moved to the United States when he was nine years old and became interested in wrestling from watching the Olympics on TV, WesternMassNews.com reported. He wrestled while attending high school in New Jersey and continued wrestling while attending college in western Massachusetts.
While Castelly is a product of Haiti, he's also very American. He served a tour in Iraq as a Muslim chaplain in the U.S. Army.
"I first saw the U.S. military in Haiti during a coup," Castelly told MassLive.com. "I saw them helping people, doing the right things, and I always wanted to be in the military.'' .
After doing four years of ROTC in high school, Castelly recommended military service to a friend, then decided to take his own advice and signed up.
"I wanted to be part of it. America gives people the opportunity to be successful,'' he said.
These days, it's not uncommon for athletes to compete at the Olympics for countries where they're not currently living. For Castelly, it was a matter of convincing his homeland that it should have wrestling.
Castelly's road to wrestle in Rio was long and challenging. He competed for Haiti at freestyle events around the world, as far away as Mongolia. He did well, but not enough to qualify for the 2016 Olympics. However, United World Wrestling has the power to grant wild card spots for the Olympics… and the sport's international governing made Castelly's dream come true by an email in May which he read in in the middle of the night when he couldn't sleep.
"So I just checked my email, and it said, from United Wrestling, you have been selected for the wildcard, based on performance, blah blah. I'm like, I did a Scooby Doo number, 'HMMM?' I didn't believe it. 'Let me double check,'" Castelly told NPR in a profile in June.
"You don't want to just be there," Castelly said. "Just say 'Oh, I was in the Games.' You want to continue making history. Before we even got the qualification we were looking at the record, what was the last time someone from Haiti won a medal was 1928."
Once Castelly completes his Olympic dream, he hopes to return to Haiti to bring wrestling to schools to the Caribbean island nation.
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