Sault Ste. Marie’s sports hall of fame has a pair of new members.
Marty Dimma (arm wrestling) and Jesse Jakomait (cycling) are the latest inductees and were honoured Thursday afternoon at an event at the Civic Centre recognizing recipients of all municipal awards.
A former Canadian champion, Dimma said the induction caught him by surprise.
“I was actually at work having my coffee break and I got an email,” Dimma said. “I was just blown away. It was like I had won the lottery. I was very surprised and pretty humbled by it because I had never had anything happen like that before.”
Dimma got started in arm wrestling in high school at White Pines as more of a recreation while at school.
“All the guys were just sitting at the cafeteria table, and everybody is arm wrestling. I never knew that I could arm wrestle, I was just going along with it, but I was beating everybody,” Dimma said. “I didn’t have any technique or anything.”
Dimma said it was a friend that convinced him to enter an arm-wrestling competition at Bon Soo.
“A friend of mine, Corey Burke, said, ‘Bon Soo is coming up, why don’t you go in it?’ and I just said ‘Okay,’” Dimma said, reminiscing about his first competition, which was held at the old Union Hall on Dennis Street.
“We were sitting at a table and I was looking around and I had to ask him, ‘Where do we do this?’” Dimma said.
Dimma added that he learned some technique on the fly at that first event and finished third.
Dimma said that one of the moments that stands out for him most in his career in arm wrestling is a rematch had had at the 2023 Canadian Armwrestling Championship against Nova Scotian Will Sarty.
The two met in the 2013 event, a match won by Sarty. The 2023 rematch saw Dimma come away victorious.
“I had been waiting 10 years for that,” Dimma said.
Among Dimma’s accomplishments are:
- provincial championship silver medal in 2001
- 5th in 2002 national championship
- northern Ontario silver medal in 2008
- won provincial and national championship in 2013
- 12th in open and 17th in masters at WAF Championship in Gdynia, Poland, in 2013
- provincial championship silver medal in 2019
- silver at Professional Arm Wrestling League (PAL) in Barrie in 2022
For Jakomait, his cycling run began at a young age at a time when mountain biking wasn’t a mainstream sport.
“It barely existed,” Jakomait said when asked how he got involved in the sport. “Luckily, with my generation, I was getting in the very beginning of this brand new sport. It was getting a bike and riding in the woods…first experience was Hiawatha. It was super fun. I was only 13 when I started mountain biking.”
“It grabbed hold of me immediately,” Jakomait added.
Jakomait said the induction gave him flashbacks to competing.
“I definitely had flashbacks to the time where my life was just dedicated 24/7 to the cause,” Jakomait said. “I still like applying myself, but that was at a full level of being engulfed into bike racing.”
“To reach that level and think back on all that dedication in my 20s, it was really good,” Jakomait also said.
Jakomait's accomplishments include:
- 1st Canada Cup, Bromont, Que., in 2003
- Canadian National Team member in 2004
- Ontario Provincial Series winner in 2004
- multiple 2nd and 3rd place finishes at Canada Cup races