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Sometimes the coin flip goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t. In Lindsey’s case, his second bout in the wrestle-backs was his lucky match. In a closely wrestled duel against a Romanian opponent, Lindsey won all three coin flips. In the first round nobody scored, giving Lindsey the victory. The second round was a repeat of the first except that Lindsey lost a point when he did not lock on his opponent promptly enough to satisfy the official. The third period held true to form and Lindsey picks up a victory without scoring an offensive point.

Lindsey’s final opponent was a wrestler from Serbia. This was where his luck ran out, or rather, the coin flip didn’t matter, since his Serbian opponent managed to score on him in both periods while Lindsey couldn’t mount any offense of his own. Although I’m sure he’s disappointed, Lindsey was able to lock up a spot for the U.S. in his weight class at next year’s Olympics.

Before Harry Lester’s bronze medal match, the other bronze medal match in his weight class (they aware two bronze medals for each weight – don’t ask me, we’re living in FILA’s world here). In that other match, one of the wrestlers is from Armenia. The Azerbaijani crowd is now has a full head of steam as they are booing everything associated with the Armenian wrestlers. Generally I think wrestlers tune out most of what’s coming out of the crowd, but this is so pervasive that I’m certain it must be getting through to him. After winning the first period, he lost the second on a penalty in which I’m certain the official was influenced by the Azerbaijani fans. In the final period he was taken down to his back and appeared to simply give up as the crowd cheered and jeered him. I truly felt bad for him.

Harry Lester came out firing away in his final match, although he looks a little different with his head nearly completely covered in a bandage due to an injury he suffered in his last match. Quickly into the match he received one point on a push out when the score clock went blank. After a few minutes they got things up again, put ten seconds on the clock and awarded Harry his point. Lester added to his lead late in the period when he countered a desperate attack, scoring a takedown to secure a 3-1 first period win. As quickly as his first period came, his second period takedown came equally late. With only three seconds remaining before the clinch, Harry scored on a spin around takedown. With no other offensive points scored the remainder of the match, this sealed Harry Lester’s win for the bronze medal!

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 Originally Posted By: RichardDSalyer
 Originally Posted By: Mike Juby
Mansurov wrestled a very good match, but it was undeniable that there were some very biased calls made that changed the outcome of this match.


As always, Mike is being diplomatic!

[Content deleted]

At this level NEVER should this type of error be made.

At the end of today's wrestling I talked with Doc Bennett and the subject of this match came up. Doc filmed the match and confirmed most of what I had observed. He also made the comment that the only way Lester was possibly going to win was to be completely in control. At this level it’s pretty hard for anyone to totally dominate his opponent.

For the record I agree with Richard's comment (including the part that I felt I should delete).

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Mike -
When you get a chance describe what the venue is like. Can you go down to the concession stand and get a coke or popcorn? I am just wondering how similar or disimilar it is to what we experience here.

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Mike, sounds like a wonderful experience! If you run into Coach Duroe of the U.S. Freestyle team, tell him the Notherns from Kansas say "hello". He is Nick's wrestling coach at Cornell College in Iowa. The U.S. Freestyle team should do well this year!

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Barry,

The venue is actually pretty nice. Think of the floor size of the Expocentre but in a round arena. Concessions are another matter - there is one booth outside in the concourse that had a stack of packaged sandwiches on the counter that you could pick from. For drinks they had a cooler with 5-6 different types of soda and juice. The only other vendor is the tshirt stand, where he has four shirts handing from a hanger. Once you find the shirt you want and agree on a price, he digs through his box to pull out your size. Just a little different than back home.

The services here would probably be the first thing you'd miss. I will do my best to not complain too much in the future about the costs and lack of choices at the Expocentre after experiencing what a true lack of choice is.

The security here is truly amazing. I've been on military bases with less military personnel visible. There are guard dogs outside the venue, metal detectors to get inside, and multiple guards at every door and hallway. Every seat in the front row (upper level, not down on the floor) is filled with a policeman for every minute of the event. I've been told that the IOC told Azerbaijan that their Olympic bid was dead in the water if there were any incidents at the Worlds; guess they're going to make sure that doesn't happen!

By the way, I am back at the tournament and currently have Internet access. Hope this lasts!

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Chip,

I really am having a great time. In some ways I think it might be good that this is my first World Championships. I’ve heard several people complain about the problems at this one, but without a point of reference I’m just enjoying all of the things that I’ve never experienced before.

I see Coach Duroe frequently and will pass along your message to him.

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We're starting out well today after winning our first two matches. Brad Vering easily handled Nikola Knezevic of Montenegro then T.C. Dantzler defeated the defending World Champion Volodimir Shatskykh (Ukraine) in a match where, while it was close, he was pretty much in control. What a tough first round draw (for the Ukrainian!).

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I don’t think I’ve seen anyone dominated at thoroughly as Justin Ruiz handled John Tarkong, Jr. of Palau (an island near Indonesia). It took Ruiz a total of 45 seconds TOTAL to defeat Tarkong (that's the total from both periods). If only they were all this easy!

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Today I got to watch my first U.S. wrestler in the World finals! Brad Vering had a great tournament, and this was his first time ever to medal at the Worlds after some near misses, but I’m sure it was still left a bitter taste to come so close to being the best in the world. Brad’s silver medal was our only award of the day, although Justin Ruiz came within two victories of the bronze medal.

The concession stands have adapted to the demand and now include candy and snack foods. Everything is still on the counter except for the pop. It’s a similar setup to what you might see at a small kids tournament in Kansas.

Although there are always going to be glitches at any tournament, you should expect more from the top level wrestling event in the world. Something happened today that I consider inexcusable. The greatest glory an amateur can experience is to stand at the top of the awards stand in the world championships of his/her sport and listen to their national anthem played. When the music started for the 74 kg champion, what Bulgarian Yavor dimitrov Yanakiev heard did not sound familiar to him. With a confused look on his face, he began to gesture that the song was wrong. After finally stopping the incorrect anthem, they then proceeded to start the wrong anthem at least two more times. Finally they gave up on getting the anthem right and raised the flags with no music, depriving this young man of the well deserved memory that he should have been able to cherish forever.

There were other snafus, including the main lights going out during the finals (there was enough remaining light for them to continue without interrupting the match), but the foregoing was the only one that truly troubled me. However, nothing can detract from the unbelievable wrestling that I’ve been able to see the last two days. Tomorrow we finish the final Greco Roman weight and start freestyle. In addition to today’s silver medal, we have also secured one more weight class for the U.S. team at next year’s Olympics.

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I stayed at the venue until the conclusion of the wrestling but, since the U.S. did not have a medalist in the last weight class, I headed back to the hotel as soon as that match concluded (and it was one heck of a match!). I just found out that they assembled the medalists from the 74 kg bracket after everything else was done to have a replay of the awards presentations, this time with the correct anthem. Better than anything, I guess, but it's still a shame that he didn't get his recognition when everyone was still in the arena.

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After three days I still haven’t seen my first USA individual gold medal, but I won’t complain about what I have seen. Although our two freestyle wrestlers did not place today, our final Greco Roman wrestler, Dremiel Byers, won a bronze medal. In doing so, he accomplished one of the two things that needed to happen for the U.S. to claim our first ever team World Championship in Greco Roman wrestling. The second fell into place when Lopez (Cuba) beat Baroev (Russia) for the individual gold medal. I know from these wrestler’s bios that they have met at least twice before and each time the Russian prevailed; but this time was the Cuban’s turn. With his victory, we clinched the title by one slim point! It was one of the few times that I ever remember enthusiastically rooting for a Cuban!

On other thoughts from the World Championships, I am amazed and impressed at the fans from Iran. They take up two large sections of the seats on opposite sides of the arena and sing, chant, clap and play horns and drums to cheer for the wrestlers. Even when they aren’t wrestling you can still hear them cheering (not sure what they’re cheering for, but they always seem pretty enthusiastic about it). I’ve talked with a few of the Iranians and they are always quick to say that the Iranian people like Americans and that it is the governments that don’t get along. I don’t know if I believe that is necessarily true for most Iranians, but the wrestling fans here seem sincere.

Another thing that I’ve noticed is the seating habits of different nationalities. When I was sitting next to several of our wrestlers and coaches today, I noticed that everyone automatically would sit with one seat separating them. As the bleachers would fill up, they would compress next to each other to make room, but the initial reaction was to establish some personal space. On the other hand, I regularly see fans from other countries, particularly the Azerbaijanis, who will sit next to each other, even leaning into each other, regardless of whether there are open seats of not. I will admit that I would prefer to have some space around me and would be uncomfortable sitting as closely as some of the other nations seem to. I’m not sure what that means, but I found it interesting.

Back to the wrestling, another non-USA wrestler that we were all cheering for (after his first match, that is) was Sait Prizreni. Sait defeated Mike Zadick in his first match, which meant that Zadick was finished unless Prizreni made it to the finals. Making this a little more palatable was the fact that Sait had lived in the U.S. for several years, training with and developing friendships with some of our team members. Unfortunately Sait was beaten in the semi-finals, coming one match shy of getting Mike Zadick back into the competition.

Since both of our freestyle wrestlers were eliminated, and Byer’s bronze medal match wouldn’t start until 6:00, I took my first break from the tournament thus far and went back to the hotel to go for a short run. I generally run or bike daily, but since I arrived I’ve only gotten one workout in since I arrived in Baku. Both times that I ran I noticed that I never saw another runner, something that rarely happens when I run in any populated area in the U.S. Not only were there not any runners, but I noticed that I was getting lots of strange looks. Probably amazed that that old fat man could run so fast (at least that’s what I kept telling myself!).

I hope you’re enjoying these reports. If you’d like to get more information on the championships, I’d suggest going to TheMat.com's Special Coverage or FILA's coverage.

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Craig Sesker, Communications Manager for USA Wrestling, asked me for my comments on being here in Azerbaijan when our national team won their first ever world championship in Greco-Roman wrestling. Since I assumed that he was looking for something other than “Wow!”, I decided to write down some thoughts and then rely on him to use his journalism expertise to pull what he needs from them (and hopefully make me sound better than I’m capable of doing for myself). Also, being the lazy type this seemed like a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone by also posting these thoughts here, partially fulfilling my duty to update all of you on what’s happening here in Baku.

For much of the competition I had no idea that anything unusual was happening. I enjoyed seeing our athletes win, was disappointed for them when they lost, and relished every opportunity to see one of them standing on the medal stand and to see our flag hoisted high above the crowd. I kept hoping for one of our guys to win that world championship and witness the sound of our national anthem playing for this great crowd of wrestling fans that has assembled here. Frankly, it never even occurred to me to question where we were as a team for a couple of reasons.

First, one of my goals in coming to my first ever World Championships was to get to meet and know our world team athletes. Thus far, all of the ones that I have met have been great people, causing me to have strong emotional feelings concerning their success. Second, there is a real sense of pride that comes from seeing our nation’s athletes competing victoriously against the other nations of the world in this international venue. I suppose I was somewhat caught by the adage of “not seeing the forest for the trees.” The trees were our wrestlers, and I was entirely focused on them and forgot about considering the team. Third, it frankly did not seem to me that what we were doing was that monumental compared to what other countries were doing.

For those of you who are experienced in following our national teams, I’m sure my reasons seem quite naive at best. Perhaps so, but in my defense I would point out that USAW needs people like me whose primary focus is on the grassroots level. Having said that, I am finding that I’ve missed a lot in not taking a little extra time to learn about our national team members and to follow their quest to become the best in the world. Yes, I’ve always watched our team at the Olympics and paid attention to how our national team has done at major events like the Pan Am Games and the World Championships, but I’ve not ever really focused on the individuals on that team and what they were like. So maybe, in a way, my total ignorance in how the team score was going was a sign of my development as a fan of our sport at the elite level.

In any event, I entered the arena yesterday afternoon with a new level of excitement and a bit of trepidation after being told that we were within striking distance of earning our first ever world championship. Part of the equation that was going to give us the outcome we wanted was entirely in our control, but the other part relied on the team we were racing for the top spot losing their final match, and against an opponent who they had beaten at least twice before. Honestly it all seemed a like the odds were against us, but isn’t it when the odds are greatest that the emotional rewards are the highest?

As that Russia/Cuba match began, my anticipation turned to hope, then anticipation and finally belief as I saw the Cuban wrestler avenge his prior losses to his Russian opponent and secure us the world championship title!

Wow!

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This experience must be right up there with having your first child ( not really but you know what I mean). Keep the posts coming. I feel like I'm right there with you.

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Yesterday was a tough day for our team, albeit with a silver lining. For the first time since I’ve begun attending the World Championships (that’s four days, for those who are counting), Team USA did not have an athlete on the medal stand. Joe Heskett, Joe Williams and Doug Schwab all managed to come one win shy of the bronze medal, but that’s where their tournaments ended. A single positive aspect to come out of the day was that we qualified all three weights for next year’s Olympics, not an insignificant thing.

Today is starting to look at lot like yesterday, although I’m counting on a different ending. All three of our wrestlers, Daniel Cormier, Tommy Rowlands and Stephanie Murata, lost on the front side and were forced to wait and watch and hope that their opponent was able to advance to the finals, qualifying them for the Repechage (back side matches). In each case, the wrestler that they lost to was successful in making the finals, which means that they each have a chance to earn the bronze medal. Daniel must win two matches, Tommy has to win three and Stephanie must go four unbeaten matches to get the bronze.

Yesterday I was introduced by Rich Bender, USA Wrestling’s Executive Director, to FILA President Raphael Martinetti. I also had a chance to sit with Stan Dziedzic, former Olympic medalist, World Champion and the only U.S. member on the FILA board, and watch all of our three bronze medal matches. Since we lost all three of them I’m pretty sure that Stan wants nothing else to do with me.

One non-U.S. match yesterday that I enjoyed (among many) was when Temrezov of Azerbaijan wrestled Yazdani of Iran at 84 kg. In a terrific match between two highly talented wrestlers and backed by the hometown crowd vs. the most enthusiastic group of wrestling fans in the venue, the place was sizzling with electricity. The Iranian won the second period after the Azerbaijani won the first period, sending their match into a third and deciding round, where Yazdani won a 1-0 victory that helped propel him to his second consecutive World Championships bronze medal. What stood out most in this match was the great deal of scrambling that went on, reminding me very much of good American funk wrestling.

Today I got to witness the weigh-in, which would be familiar to any U.S. wrestling fan except for one distinction. Instead of drawing random numbers for their spot on the bracket after weighing in, they were presented with a computer screen with a digital deck of cards displayed, one for every wrestler in their weight class. They would choose their card, which would be clicked with a mouse to display their spot. All of this was also put up on large displays so everyone in the room could see the results as they happened. Since the byes all go to the top of the bracket, everyone is hoping for a small number. The display also shows all of the other wrestlers who have already picked their numbers so you can quickly see who your first round opponent will be.

There are a few other things that I’ve noticed that remind me I’m not at a tournament back home. One is the call for the top eight in each bracket to report to a special room after their awards ceremony is complete. My first thought was that this was for some type of private honor (once again displaying my ignorance). It didn’t take me too long to recognize what was really going on – the athletes were being required to undergo testing for banned substances. Of course I knew that this was required, it’s just easy to forget the differences at times. Another difference, and I’ll try to be delicate here, the men’s restrooms do not have stools. Everything that needs to be done in there is done standing up. I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable with that.

A final difference is how confrontations are handled. Generally, in the U.S., if venue security personnel asks you to move, you may grumble but most people will comply, knowing that arguing too long or too heatedly will get you ejected. Here, nearly every time I see someone sit or go someplace they aren’t supposed to be and are approached by one of the security people and told to move/leave the area, a heated argument ensues. In some cases I see security actually lose the argument and walk away in disgust, and I hardly ever see any actual action taken against these people. I’m sure there is a line that can’t be crossed, but there seems to be a lot of gray area that involves a lot of very heated arguing.

Good luck to our three wrestlers today … we especially need wins from our freestyle men to avoid a medal shutout at this year’s World Championships!

===================

I wrote the preceding during the break before the start of the Repechage session, but was unable to post it at that time due to the Internet being down (again). Our athletes did a great job in this final session, lead by Daniel Cormier winning three matches on his way to earning the bronze medal (and making sure Team USA Freestyle was not shut out of the medal stand). Tommy Rowlands won two matches and Stephanie Murata had three straight victories which advanced both of them to the bronze medal match, but they came up short of the medal. All three of them qualified their weight for the U.S. at next year's Olympic team.

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This will be a short report in that I really don’t have a lot to report on. Yesterday all of our women were eliminated in the first session. This is the first time this has happened to Team USA at the World Championships, and left me with an afternoon and evening open. My roommate Larry Slater wanted to see the old city to take some photographs and I offered to serve as amateur guide since I had gone there the day before competition began. Larry is responsible for most of the U.S. photos here; you can see his photographs at http://lbsphoto.smugmug.com/Olympic%20Wrestling/361752.

Yesterday evening I went to a FILA banquet with Jim Ravannack, Stan Dziedzic, his wife Arlene and Hank Goldman where we sat at an all English speaking table that included representatives from Australia and Canada. It was nice having conversations that did not involve hand gestures and simple one-word phrases. At the banquet Stan Dziedzic presented awards to the current inductees into FILA’s hall of fame.

Today’s session is going much better. Kristie Marano is our first and only woman to reach the finals, where she will wrestle last year’s world champion Stanka Zlateva for this year’s title. Katie Downing lost in the semifinals and needs to win her next match to claim the bronze. Sara Mc Mann lost her first match of the day to Kaon Icho, but since Icho has advanced to the finals Sara will get the chance to wrestle back through the Repechage.

=============

Update #1: Both of the U.S. women wrestling in the Repechage won their matches to advance to the bronze medal match! In about an hour, we will have three wrestlers looking to medal at these World Championships. Hopefully, before most of you wake up this Sunday morning, we will have added three medals to our totals (one gold and two bronze). Wouldn’t be a bad way to end the 2007 World Championships!

=============

Update #2: One final first for me before I leave Baku. All three wrestlers today earned medals in their weight class, with Katie Downing and Sara Mc Mann receiving the bronze medal and Kristie Marano the silver. Today was definitely an improvement over yesterday. It is currently about 7 p.m. here in Azerbaijan. My flight will be leaving in nine hours and I'll arrive home about 27 hours later. I doubt that I'll be posting during the trip home and will probably need some time to recover and catch up on work, so this will be the last post for awhile. I hope you found the reporting enjoyable and informative!

Go USA!!

Last edited by Mike Juby; 09/23/07 12:52 PM. Reason: Updated information from the tournament.
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Great job Mike and have a safe trip home!!

I really enjoyed your reports!


Are you making a POSITIVE difference in the life of kids?

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Final Freestyle Standings from the World Championships!

Senior Freestyle Results
Team Score
1 RUSSIA, 68 pts.
2 TURKEY, 40 pts.
3 CUBA, 34 pts.
4 UNITED STATES, 32 pts.
5 UZBEKISTAN, 31 pts.
6 UKRAINE, 28 pts.
7 IRAN, 19 pts.
8 KYRGYZSTAN, 14 pts.
9 BULGARIA, 12 pts.
9 MONGOLIA, 12 pts.
9 GEORGIA, 12 pts.
9 AZERBAIJAN, 12 pts.
13 TAJIKISTAN, 9 pts.
14 ALBANIA, 8 pts.
14 BELARUS, 8 pts.
16 GERMANY, 7 pts.
16 INDIA, 7 pts.
18 CHINA, 6 pts.
18 ROMANIA, 6 pts.
18 KAZAKHSTAN, 6 pts.
21 GREECE, 5 pts.
22 COLOMBIA, 4 pts.
22 HUNGARY, 4 pts.
22 KOREA, 4 pts.
25 CANADA, 3 pts.
25 MACEDONIA, 3 pts.
27 SPAIN, 2 pts.
27 JAPAN, 2 pts.
27 SYRIA, 2 pts.
30 CYPRUS, 1 pts.


Russia dominated to say the least. They went 37-1 in matches and won 6 Gold's out of 7 weights. They won 74 out of 81 periods!

The U.S. qualified 5 of their 7 wrestlers.

Cejudo - 0-1 - DNP
Zadick - 0-1 - DNP
Schwab - 3-2 - 5th place
Heskett - 4-2 - 5th place
Williams - 4-2 - 5th place
Cormier - 4-1 - 3rd place
Rowlands - 3-2 - 5th place


Eric Johnson


Acts 4:12


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