Last blog at 2014 Worlds

Rough day for the American Greco Team today. 

Joe Rau was winning against his Suisse opponent and got pinned. 

Bryce Sadoris pinned his TJK opponent and then lost 1-0 to the Georgian wrestler who is very good. The GEO did not pull him through though. For his first Worlds, Bryce looked great!

Robby Smith beat Korea 8-2 then lost to Bulgaria 9-0. He got rolled up in a flurry of gut wrenches which put him behind by 7 points. To win at this level Robby will have to really focus on three things:

1. Get in "Rulon Gardner" type cardiovascular conditioning. He must become an expert at out moving all of the 130 kilo guys, gassing all of them out.

 

2. Get his opponents put down in parterre first. 

3. Execute his tremendously successful front headlock. 

If he can become a master in these three areas he will be in the hunt for a world medal in the years to come. 

All three guys are out of the tournament and USA is done for the day. 

Tomorrow our three WCAP athletes will be up. Spenser Mango, Justin Lester and Caylor Williams will all be testing their skills in the big game. 

I will be taking the long journey home tonight. 

Greco still has a chance to do very well here at the World Championships. 

Spenser has been doing all the right things in his training and preparation. Even with 59 kilos being a very tough weight class I think Spenser has a great shot at winning a medal. 

Lester is a veteren and even though he hasn't won a medal since 2007 (he has 2 world bronze medals to his name) he is talented enough to still win. 

Williams, in only his second world championship, is very explosive and hungry to do well. He could very well surprise some people here. 

My overall experience here in Tashkent was a good one. Yes, the 2014 World Championships were not the best run championships I've been to. And yes, I along with many others, got a bit stomach sick from the food or water or something. But as usual the Tashkent people were wonderful hosts and friendly as I have seen. 

There were many interesting sites and customs with-in the city. Personally I loved the UZB food and totally enjoyed the experience. 

Next years World Championships will take place in Las Vegas, Navada. And I promise you it will be a spectacular event!

Best Regards,

~sf

Pics

Bisek and Rod back stage

And Elaina warming up

Day 5

The finals are about to begin. Pretty good day for the US Greco and Women's team so far. 

Elaina is going for gold. And Andy Bisek is wrestling for bronze. 

Elaina had another tough draw (just like Gray did) this morning and came through with flying colors. Her first two bouts required her to beat opponents that have beaten her before. Latvia and Mongolia both have beaten her. Mongolia has beaten her three times in fact. 

She wrestled well to say the least. She seemed to have that "eye of the tiger", coming from behind in both bouts to win.

Four victories and she is now wrestling for the world title!

Andy Bisek also had the "eye of the tiger" as well. In his second match he faced off with the Russian. Down 5-2 he came storming back to gut wrench him twice and then take him down to win a 6-6 tie. 

It was stupendous! 

In his quarter final bout against Croatia he wrestled toe to toe the entire match. 0-0 at the half. Then, in a totally even bout, both guys fighting hard and even, the ref decides to caution Andy which gives the CRO a point. Why the ref chose Andy to caution is like flipping a coin. 

No additional points were scored and the ref never cautions the CRO (which would have been fair) and Andy loses the match 1-0. These are the matches that are extremely frustrating because they are soo close and the ref just decides who he thinks should win. 

Anyway, this is life in the international wrestling game. 

Andy then had to beat the Finland wrestler who is very strong. This was the match that would advance him to the bronze medal match. Again Andy had to come from behind to score big points to win. The heart of a true champion!

Andy is an example of someone who is doing all the right things to become world class in this sport. Not only is he coachable and hard working, he also works a job in between practices everyday in Colorado Springs to support his wife, son and baby on the way. He is paying the price in everyway to try and acheive in this great sport of ours. 

Later...

News flash!!! 

Elaina loses a close one to end with silver. She gave it all! Proud of her!

Andy crushes Japan to win bronze!! It was outstanding! In a flurry of spectacular parterre moves Andy Bisek 8 points Japan to take his (and the Greco teams) first medal here in Tashkent. 

So proud of this kid who works so hard to win in this tough grueling game. 

The women's team ends up with three medals, one in each color. And third place as a team!

Congrats to both the women's and Greco coaches for their exhaustive work preparing their teams for battle! 

Terry Steiner and Matt Lindland leading the way! 

Day 4: wrestling

The women had a pretty good day today, so far. Semi-finals are over and we have two going for medals. 

Adeline Gray and Alli Ragan will wrestle tonight for their world medals. Gray will go for gold and Ragan will go for bronze. 

Whitney Conder wrestled very well too but not quite there yet, going two and two on the day. Trust me, if she keeps working like she has been in recent years she will eventually reach the top podium step. 

Terry Steiner and his staff are doing a great job with the program. They are very organized and have created a strong system and strong approach in preparing and developing our young women athletes. Everyone of the women - win or lose - wrestled with a good aggressive style (so far) and all showed they were in great cardiovascular shape. 

Adeline Gray had, by far, one of the toughest draws of the entire tournament thus far. She was losing in her first match against the Chinese opponent by a score of 9-2. However, she never quit. She stayed focussed and continued to attack her foe, non-stop. In a exciting comeback she rallied late in the match to out point her 11-10. It was tremendous! 

In her next match agianst the Turk again it was high scoring and quite back and fourth. She again prevailed by pinning her. 

And then two big wins over Japan and Estonia to put her in the finals where she is guarenteed nothing less than a silver medal. But I can tell you with great confidence that she will NOT settle for a silver tonight. It's nothing less than Gold tonight. The Brazilian athlete stands little chance in my mind. 

Congrats to Coach Steiner, his coaches and the women's team!

Gray warming up before her first match:

Day 4: Embassy visit

Kiki Kelley, who is the Greco Team Leader, organized a visit to the US Embassy - Tashkent yesterday between sessions. We attended a meeting that included about 40 local UZB people that come to learn more about the United States culture, ideals and language. Mostly college age students were in attendance. 

What a wonderful experience for the five of us Americans that went. We talked about the American cuture, wrestling and a lot about our society. The group asked many questions about the USA. They wanted to know about many things, like:

* how dangerous is it in the bigger cities

* do all people carry guns

* why we drive bigger cars

* what Americans thought about health and fitness

* how wrestlers make a living

* how we balance job and home

The session was suppose to go for one hour, but the group was so interested and engaged, they let the session go for 90 minutes. We gave out many gifts, like USA caps, t.shirts, and pins. A group photo was taken and autographs were signed. Face book addresses were exchanged and a lot of shaking hands. 

The US Embassy was beautiful, standing on a large peice of property. Security was very tight and no phones or cameras were allowed on the grounds. About 100 Americans worked there along with about 200 UZB staff. 

Day 3, more women

What a heart breaker for Lampe! In the bronze medal match against PRK she totally out-wrestled her opponent. She missed big points at the 1st period buzzer and then just missed getting the match clinching takedown with 30 seconds to go in the match. Ugh!

Then with 15 seconds to go Lampe gives up a double leg attack which ties the score. Last points scored gives PRK the match and Lampe loses the bronze by the skin of her teeth. 

That one hurts! She deserved to win that medal. 

Helen Maroulis is in the midst of destroying the POL for the bronze. No, I take that back, she just destroyed the POL, 10-0. Helen wins the bronze medal!

Helen wrestled so very well today. In the match against the Japanese girl, in the semi, she wrestled with great aggressive intensity, taking it to her opponent the entire match. She was in her face the whole time, leading the match 2-0 with about one minute to go. Then out of no where the Japanese wrestler shot on Helen and took her down, exposing her back for 4 points. Another heart breaker because Helen wrestled so intense the entire time. 

Helen in the warm up room before one of her matches:

Day 3, women are up

The completion of day two saw Jordan Burroughs winning a bronze medal. After hurting his knee in his first match against GBS he seemed to fight past the pain and regain his groove. However, the Russian, in the semis, was on his game and seemed to never allow for Burroughs to get anything going. 

Back stage I know there was some talk that Jordan would not wrestle for the bronze but as usual Jordan sucked it up and wrestled with all his heart to crush the Ukrainian for the bronze and his fourth world/olympic medal. There is no doubt that Jordan Burroughs is one of the all-time greats in the world of wrestling. 

Today, on the women's side, Lampe just beat the Mongolian in a barn burner of a match. Wow! She showed some great fight in a high scoring, back and forth, intense match. Her great conditioning came through for her. 

As always at the World Championships it comes down to who is willing to lay it all out there and fight harder. Gotta have that fierce street fight mentality! My experience tells me that the champs are the wrestlers that are here to go all out, non stop, 100%! 

Lampe warming up:

Day 2, in Tashkent

Day one ended on a great note with Dlagnev winning his second world bronze medal of his career. He expressed great happiness with the victory against BLR. 

During the match Tervel had great composure and resolve wrestling a very confident and smart match. 

Only one medal on the day but very close  to having Ruth, Marabel and Ramos in the hunt for bronze. Believe me these guys will be back in the future. 

Today, on day two, Jake Varner just crushed his German opponent in his first match. Jake looks massive and very physical. 

What does Varner do immedeatly after his match?... He jogs around the mat back stage warming down. For at least fifteen minutes, Varner lightly jogs, skips and such cooling down his body. 

News flash! Omgosh! Time out! Jordan Burroughs just wrestled a 4-3 match with a guy from GBS. GBS? So sorry. I don't even know what country that is. I don't mean to be disrespectful. But I seriously don't know. 

Now this guy was either very tough or Jordan wrestled very poorly. Near the end of the first period Burroughs did give up a takedown and then took an injury time-out. Looked like a knee issue. 

Burroughs did get to his opponents leg on more then a few occasions and the kid defended very tough. It was very interesting to say the least. 

With about a minute to go in the match Burroughs was acually losing the match 3-3 (tie going to GBS). 

More on Burroughs later!

Back to Varner: I was starting to say Varner's warmdown was an example of good discipline and following Coach Sanderson's coaching expertise. I noticed yesterday that Ed Ruth did a similar warmdown. Obviously an exercise taught by Sanderson. 

Another example of athletes believing in thier coaches and doing the small details the make the difference between Gold and not. 

Details win medals!

Jordan in his warm up today:

Day One Ruth

Blog 4: Day one of the competition. Pic below: Ruth warming up with Coach Cunningham before his first match.

Ruth wrestled a great match against the Iranian, Mohammadian. The match score was 7-4 but it was as close as could be. Ruth left 2 points off the board when, at the end of the first period, Ruth got behind him and could not break the Iranian's tri-pod. 

Then with a minute or so to go in the second period Ruth again got behind him and struggled for about 30 seconds to break his tri-pod position again. Ruth did finally break him down to score his takedown but lost precious time off the clock. 

I wonder if Ruth could have hit a straight lift from this tri-pod position which would have scored him 4 points and sent the crowd a screaming! Of course it's easy to arm-chair quarterback from up in the stands. 

Ruth, who is competing in his first world championship, showed he is more than capable of competing at this level. I think Mohammadian will carry him through and Ruth will be pulled back into the repechage. 

$$$ in UZB

Post 3: Great first day in Tashkent. Beautiful weather and beautiful people. Had lunch/dinner with Coach Petkovic and Rod Rodriguez (Greco coach & trainer). I recommend the lamb! Very tasty. 

The money situation is very interesting here. Approximately 2300 sum to $1 US dollar. I changed only two hundred dollars and may have to buy a man purse to carry it. Check out the pic:

First weigh-in is complete and freestyle is on stage tomorrow. Mood is good and everyone with high hopes. 

Ugh! Travel to Tashkent isn't easy.

Post 2: Traveling to Tashkent is not an easy trip. Tashkent is on the opposite side of the world from Colorado. In fact many people went west from the US and others went east. 

I am in the midst of traveling east. Denver, Minneapolis, Amsterdam, Moscow, then finally Tashkent. I'm currently in Moscow suffering an 8.5 hour layover. No place in this airport to lay down. Every single chair has those arm rests, dividing each seat. Hate that!

Don't know if I'm getting older and weaker but I was sooo tired I could not stay upright anymore. I found a place in a corner, out of the way, where I laid on the hard cold floor. Stole an hour of sleep before security and two medical people woke me (probably thinking I might be dead, or something) and forced me up. 

Then a few hours later a cafe waiter startled me by kindly tapping me on my shoulder as I was sitting in my chair, face down, on the table top. Ugh!

Left the US on Friday and will get to Tashkent on Sunday (two days to get there).

Tashkent bound!

Hey friends! I will be doing a "behind the scenes" blog at the World Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in an effort to share some personal insight to what is going on over there. My plan is to give you some flavor of what is happening back stage, as well as on stage. 

All three of our US teams are ready to rock! 

Freestyle will be lead by our superstar Jordan Burroughs who will be fighting for his fourth Gold medal. Jake Varner is back to defend his Olympic Gold medal. This is his first Worlds since the London Games. Brett Metcalf has been knocking on the door in recent years and with the new rules will be poised to do some serious damage. 

The Women's team is one of the best ever! Coach Steiner is very confident of this group of women. Leading the way will be Helen Maroulis, Adeline Gray and Elena Pirozhkiva. According to Steiner they have had their best training camp ever. 

The Greco squad, with new National Coach Matt Lindland, will be counting on Spenser Mango, Robby Smith and Andy Bisek to lead the guys to the podium top. Mango is the real deal and will be competing at 59kgs, which will see competitors from two former weight classes. 55kg and 60kg guys will now all be at 59kg. Tough weight, no doubt!

More later!

~sf