Concordia Stingers wrestling coach Victor Zilberman was inducted as a builder into the Canadian Amateur Wrestling Hall of Fame recently.
He was honored for his long and distinguished coaching career at the university level, with the Montreal Wrestling Club and as a mentor to Canadian athletes at the international level.
Zilberman has kept Concordia on the leading edge of interuniversity wrestling since 1977. He has guided his university athletes to more than 46 gold medals (93 medals overall) and six team titles at the nationals. In addition six Concordia athletes have been named the outstanding wrestler at the CIS tournament and Zilberman has been named Coach of the Year on three occasions - in 1984, ’86 and 2006.
He was inducted into the Concordia Sports Hall of Fame in 1998.
Outside of Concordia, Zilberman also has impressive credentials. Under his tutelage, two former Stingers – Martine Dugrenier and David Zilberman – have qualified to compete at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. Another athlete trained by Zilberman – Guivi Sissaouri – won a silver medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics. To date, Zilberman has been a coach on the Canadian staff at four Olympic Games.
He has also served as Canada’s national team coach on several occasions, supervising and mentoring athletes at World University Games, Pan-Am Games, Commonwealth Games, World championships and countless other international competitions.
Zilberman resides in Côte St. Luc, Que., and teaches physical education at Vanier College.
