So there I was wandering around the Olympic Village somewhere in Southwest Moscow on a Tuesday afternoon before weigh in. You know, they did have the Olympics here, back in 1980 (We in the states had other plans, as you may recall). Anyway, I asked several different people where the sports complex, or sports hall, is. No luck, with a standard response of "I don't live here, I just work here." Thanks.
Anyway, after a few tries I hit on some knowledge and got pointed in the right direction. I stumbled into the gym about 2 hours before the scheduled weigh in. There my short, pudgy Yakuti teammate/friend Valeri was cutting weight to make 57 kilos. We shook hands, sort of (when their hands are sweaty or otherwise unfit for shaking, the guys will often ofter a limp wrist of peace), and then I went looking around for the scale. Not that I cut 5 kilos or anything. I just maintain a hard body and compete.
Lurking around the basement of the complex, I found a store to buy singlets in (for those not in the know, the funny spandex I'll be appearing in below), the trainer's room, and a few locker rooms, but no scales. Again, asking proved largely fruitless: "You're here to early, young man, the weigh in starts at 5." Well, yes, I'm not quite as dumb as I look, usually we can check before, thanks. I ran into a few more guys from ЦСКА, and through their conversations and our handshakes I figured out that we could check at 4.
In general here in Moscow, and especially with regards to wrestling, schedules are more of a rough sketch than an accurate, to the date/minute summary of when events will go on. The general case is bus schedules, where a route is expected to come every 7 minutes: on average that may be true, but often times it means that 3 will come in a row within a 2-minute span and no other ones will arrive for 20 minutes. For wrestling, that meant that a) this tournament, on the schedule for Nov. 10th-12th, happened Oct. 31st-Nov. 2nd, and that b) while we did indeed get to check our weight at 4 (right on, as expected), the weigh in got bumped up to 4:30 rather than 5, meaning I could rehyd...er...further hydrate and eat earlier. Also, the tournament would start an hour earlier the next day.
So, with the benefit of a day before weigh-in and the extra time from getting out early, I hopped back on the metro and met up with friends at the underground mall in the center, right next to the red square, for blini. Basically, huge pancakes/crepes stuffed with food. And I ordered a kasha with chocolate paste. Mmmm. Not quite doable in the states, where we weigh in an hour or two before competition.
Gameday
I appear in plenty of time and get loose, ready to go. Of course, the store I was going to buy my sweet singlet from is closed. Again, the kindness of teammates (in this case one I don't even know well) set me up with a spare singlet. I warm up, and everybody from the club is excited to see how the American does. As usual, I have filled the role of "younger brother", so to speak, perfectly in my social cliche.
It turns out that in the random draw, I pulled a teammate. Alegojai Aleef (that's a guess both on spelling and on the actual name, I didn't completely get it) is from Daghestan, is shorter and fatter than me (hard to believe, eh?), and beat me in a barnburner in practice last Friday, 3-0 0-1 3-2. Which leads to a detailed wrestling discussion:
In American colleges, we have folkstyle wrestling, which goes for 7 minutes of regulation time over 3 periods and with the points all added up. So if I score 2, 4, and 3 points in the first, second and 3rd periods respectively, I have 9 for the match. Say my opponent scores 3, 5, and 0 in those periods: I win, despite "losing" the first 2 periods. In freestyle, the olympic/international form of the sport, I would have lost- the scoring is more akin to boxing, perhaps, and you need to win 2 of 3 rounds (a pin in either style ends the match then and there, true). There are other differences, but for now that's all you need to know.
What this leads to is a different mentality out there, a far more strategic one as I see it. I'd analogize it to football:soccer. In football and folkstyle wrestling, there is far less risk to scoring as many points as you possibly can, and so while defense is essential, if you have an attacking attitude you will do a lot better. In soccer and freestyle wrestling, it's more important to capitalize on your scoring opportunities, and trying to create or force chances when they aren't there can be punished (by points for your opponent) far easier than in the American sports.
As such, the Russian style of wrestling is often as follows: grind through the first two periods, make sure you win at least one if not both, and then if there's a 3rd period, open up the vault. Of course, Russians are generally in worse shape than Americans, say, so sometimes the 3rd period is a struggle.
Back to the match: I step out in a red singlet and headgear against Ale, ready to make the corrections from last time and beat him. I start out strong, pushing the pace, getting on his head, but not risking anything stupid. He takes a bad shot, I get over top, and after some work I spin behind, bring his knee to the mat, and score the first point.
But then see, ol' Ale gets right back at it when we go back to our feet, taking a good shot and pulling it in. Despite not looking like all that much, he manages to pull in my legs out of the most improbable positions, and here he is rewarded with a point. As he scored the last point, he now has the lead for the period. I push the action, get in on a single leg, we scramble in that position, and I get a point right at the bell (literally a gong, a kid at the table rings it). Or wait, do I? The ref looks at the other refs: was it in time? In the end they rule against me and he holds on for a resounding 1-1 first period victory.
I return to my corner, where my Yakuti coach is shaking out my arms and telling me good things: I'm shooting well, I'm looking good, just better finishes. I feel good too, I just need to put this guy away.
This is the sort of position called "over top" where I (in red) score points. Well, in freestyle, single points.
It's strange how high a percentage of pictures taken of me wrestling feature me with head between my opponent's legs.
At least this time it looks like I mean a world of hurt for my man Ale.Unfortunately, the second period doesn't go quite as planned: I give up a point early, and now wrestling from behind I start to force my positions, which leads to an easy second point scored off my shot, and that's all they wrote. 1-1 0-2 was the final. I get off the mat, espying my two friends from the night before who came to see me (in the unofficial but vital category of "Most girls watching", I took the title by a landfall on the first day), and smiling a hello before doing some cooldown running. My coach comes over and talks to me, still insisting I looked good out there, which is encouraging.
Now I have to wait: the olympic style tournament features a consolation bracket only for wrestlers who lose to a finalist (they also have two bronze medalists, for some reason), so I need AA to get into the finals. Considering he wins every period by a point, it's a pretty excruciating day. Still, I stand with my friends and watch as he makes it to the semis, where he meets with another ЦСКА wrestler, one of the complete opposite body build: tall, skinny. Ale is exhausted by this point, and doesn't turn out so hot, losing in two periods and ending my day. He ends up losing the 3rd place match as well, while the guy who beats him wins the tournament.
Naturally, I'm a little unsatisfied over my day, like a young man in for a quickie, so when a bigger guy mentions that he's going to enter in a different weight class tomorrow and suggests I do the same, I think about it. I would be giving up weight (74 KG + 2 was the weight class), but I'm strong: I'd be tired, but whatever: it'd cost 300 rubles, but that's barely over $10, and then I could buy a cool Russian singlet too. After some thinking and discussing, I went for it, weighing in and impressing one of the refs running the scale (Look at this fellows, an American is wrestling, and in both days too!). Another blini with friends and back to home to get ready for...
Gameday 2
For whatever reason, day 2 started at 12. So I got there earlier, went through the same routine, and got ready to go. This time my coaches were two Chechen teammates, Timur and Beslan. As I got into my singlet for the first match, Timur tells me, "You should beat this guy..no, put your singlet on before you get on the mat, they might give you a warning!" Avoiding those problems, I get loose and limber. My opponent is a little older, and it becomes clear that I'm actually on a higher class: after working for position for the first minute, I hit a single, score, and then hit a 2-pt. gutwrench on top (the main freestyle roll) and take a 3-0 lead. Really excited about the prospects of winning a period, I cool the jets and stick to that score.
In the corner Timur tells me I need to move more, which is kind of neat, because I don't think Russian coaches would say that, it sounds more like American advice. Anyway, I go back out there and resume with the same sort of success, carving the guy up with a finishing 3 pt. takedown to end the match by techical decision, 6-0. He wasn't very good. But I did get called a "pretty boy" for how well I wrestled, so that was fun.
After about a half hour of rest I was out there again, this time in my new, cool-looking Red Russian singlet. If only my wrestling matched it: Again, after battles for position for about a minute, action picked up, literally. My opponent shot in on my leg, and the way I defended (in a word, stupidly) allowed him to pick me up. In Folkstyle, this isn't a huge deal: it's not good, but I can still fight, and at worst I'll probably give up a two point takedown. Here, he went straight to his back and took me with him, and the move was scored a 5-pt. takedown, which automatically ends a period. Yeesh.
The second period was, sadly, not much better: I gave up a point for getting pushed out of bounds midway through, and then instead of using good stuff resorted to a classic sit and lay technique, resulting in two points for my opponent and the end of the match, 5-0 3-0. And then he lost his last match and I was done with my Moscow tournament season.
In total, it was all worthwhile and interesting, even if I could have done better. There's always practice and all those Duke matches and tournaments to hang my hat on, isn't there? Especially when I bought two winter hats here: one is a standard winter hat, you've seen the like. The other, well, I won't say too much without a picture, but two words: leather, earflaps.
See, I didn't lose my sense of fashion or humor.
Dan
1 comment:
Thanks!
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