If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re already aware of our production, or lack thereof.
The men ended five days of competition with what could only be called an underwhelming effort, failing to win even one gold medal for the first time in 56 years.
And remember, this was without the powerful Soviet Union being present. Yea, I get it, some of their athletes jumped ship and competed for other countries. But even so, if you’d add into the mix the studs that stayed in their stable and loyal to Mother Russia, things could have gotten far worse.
As you can imagine, there’s so much to write about that I’m going to dispense my views in three installments. The women and Greco, then Freestyle followed by what’s next for our sport?
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But first, let’s talk women. As anticipated, our ladies program rocked it, winning more Gold Medals, and more Silvers and Bronzes with 6 wrestlers competing than the men did with twice as many weights being contested.
As a team, they finished second behind Japan, whose proficiency in the sport is equivalent to the quality of the cars their country produces; Tough, consistent and remarkably effective.
And now, their men’s program is equally as respected by teaching the world the importance of gut wrenches, and how we should learn to defend against them.
Adding both sexes together, the Japanese won 8 Gold Medals, which was 6 more than any other country in the world.
As for the American ladies, besides their skills and hunger to compete, three kudos must go out to their coach; Terry Steiner. Besides what I know about him personally, everyone I talk to feels the same as I do.
He’s a keeper. And a suggestion to Colorado Springs. Keep your hands off him. All you can do is screw up something that’s currently working quite well.
Without having the pleasure of watching Terry train the ladies, I hear he’s a cross between John Wooden and Dan Gable. He listens when he wants to be heard, understands his surroundings, and reacts when it’s time to be tough and disciplined.
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Regarding Greco. We finished 16th in the world with Chile, yes, that very small South American country who has 1/20th the population of the United States having more medals than we did.
To this dismal performance I have to point my finger at Colorado Springs, yet again. They are the administrators of international wrestling, in all styles. The ones who always remind us that they are in charge, they call the shots, and they are the ones who impose their will on the rest of us.
Yet, if they would be evaluated for their business acumen, like any other corporation in America, the leadership and board room would see a lot of new faces. To that I say, “if you are in charge”, then start getting the job done, or be gone.
In the absence of achievement, which we’ve just witnessed by our shortage of gold medals, maybe we need to look for different decision makers? Because we do have more sports physiologists, more nutritionists, more sports medicine personnel, more training facilities, more finances and more wrestlers competing than any other country.
And with over 200,000 registered athletes in their stable, and a budget of 10’s of millions of dollars each year, you’d think they would be able to find and/or develop 6 athletes who are proficient in Greco?
The obvious answer is, they care about Greco about as much as Nicolás Maduro cares about democracy.
Let me be candid, as the Paris Olympics pointed out, we have 1) a void in leadership at the highest levels and 2) a misguided opinion of our own fallibility. Neither of which are present in Japan.
But, what about the women? They, as I pointed out, rocked it.
That was due more to Colorado Springs leaving them be, so programs like Wrestle Like a Girl, and specifically Terry Steiner, can do his and their own thing unencumbered.
Do I have answers for Greco, yes. And for the first suggestion, I know I’m going to offend some of our current athletes.
But, maybe not, if they stop and think about what’s being proposed. It might even behoove them to say ‘hell yes.’
Premise . . . we want the best athletes America has, on the mat, at every World Championship and Olympics. Period. Sometimes that means the same wrestlers we’re currently taking overseas, and sometimes it might not.
So, how about . . . holding the freestyle trials a month or two earlier than the Greco ones; for each of our international events? This gives those athletes who finished second or third in freestyle, like Burroughs, Taylor, Nolf, Gilman, etc. a chance to slip over to Greco and test the waters there. No one doubts their competitive nature, or their levels of talent. Maybe even a Mesenbrink with his build and talent would do well in Greco?
I would think that all of our athletes would rather say they were on an Olympic team than say they almost made one. So, why wouldn’t they, given the opportunity, give Greco a try?
Will any of those athletes make the transition, I don’t know. But what would happen is this . . . we’d end up with the best group of talented athletes we’ve ever sent abroad and, for those from Greco who survived the challenge, they’d definitely be tougher and stronger, due to the level of competition they had to endure.
My second thought, at least in the short term, is to go buy 2 or 3 top of the line Greco wrestlers from other countries. Make them an offer they can’t refuse. It’s what we’re already doing with freestyle domestically at our RTC’s so why not internationally in Greco? That is, unless our administrators would rather see us discontinue that discipline? It sure seems like it given their laissez-faire attitude toward that division of wrestling.
Bringing a few studs in from overseas might cause them to sit a year before appearing in an American singlet due to international rules. But during that time, we could use their expertise to train our current group of Greco wrestlers. Clearly, that’s a weakness of ours.
Seems like a win-win to me.
Basically, we need to dump what we’ve been doing, whatever that is, and start all over again.
We either don’t understand Greco, or we don’t have athletes who are up to the job. Personally, I don’t believe the latter, so it has to be a lack of support by leadership, and our training habits truly being subpar.
In closing, I’ll never believe America has a shortage of talent to win in anything we decide to do.
