Threatful is a great name for a wrestler—as Ivy is often told—but her appearance is anything but threatening. For starters, she's 5'2" and 116 pounds. But right from her earliest wrestling days at Maple Ridge Secondary, she started living up to that name. Her high school coach said Threatful's work ethic forecast her having a lot of success in the sport.
"She's tenacious—she wholeheartedly bought into the training programs, both in our program at Maple Ridge Secondary, and at SFU," said longtime MRSS wrestling coach Bill McCrae. Describing her on the mat, he said she's got huge heart, and can outwork and wear down her opponents. "It's that tenacity—she's hard on her opponents, and she never stops," he said. Threatful is able to flip a switch. “I'm a completely different person on the mat," Threatful said.
In 2019, as a high school wrestler, she won a Cadet division national championship in Fredericton, NB, when she was just in Grade 10. Threatful allowed only one point to be scored against her in four matches. The year prior, Threatful had finished fourth. She went home and threw herself into training 12–15 hours every week between workouts with both the Ridge Meadows Ramblers and her club team, the Coast Wrestling Academy. That year she also won high school provincial silver in 2019, and then turned that to gold in 2020.
The Ridge Ramblers have been a talent pipeline for the Simon Fraser University, and Threatful was one of the many local athletes to be recruited for the SFU Red Leafs—the only Canadian school that wrestles in the US-based NCAA. Just starting her fourth year, her success has continued.
Threatful won her second national gold at the 2023 Canadian Wrestling championships, and that got her an international tournament, representing Team Canada. She wrestled for the bronze medal at the 2023 Junior Pan-American Championships which were held July 6-8 in Santiago, Chile. She finished fourth.
She took bronze at the junior nationals in 2022. In 2021 Threatful qualified for the Pan Ams in Mexico, where she placed seventh. She's winning medals for SFU in tough NCAA tournaments across the US, having recently won in Colorado, Oregon and Vegas. Threatful has also been to the NCAA nationals, where she won a pair of matches, but did not place.
Being named a Hometown Hero was an honour. "I wasn't expecting it. I was really surprised, and really thankful," she said. "It's a big honour, with all the amazing athletes that came before me, and I'm part of that club."
Her wrestling technique continues to improve, and Threatful is hitting the gym more, and putting on muscle, getting quicker and faster. Her goals are to be an NCAA All American. She will take wrestling as far as it will take her—the dream would be the Olympics—and she loves that the sport lets her experience more of the world. "I love seeing new places, and I love travelling," she said.
Academically, Threatful is studying global environmental systems, pursuing a Bachelor of the Environment degree, and is considering a career as an educator.