THE LAST WORD
Americans need to pull together
M
OSCOW, Russia - It was just a few minutes after the freestyle competition had ended at the 2010 World Championships and I was standing back in the warmup area in the arena. I was looking for one of the United States wrestlers
when Dan Gable approached me. There is nobody in the sport of wrestling I respect more than
Gable, a World and Olympic champion who has coached numerous U.S. teams to success internationally. Gable walked up to me and shook his head. “I never thought I would ever see anything like that in my life-
time,” Gable said. The U.S. had its worst freestyle performance in the 50 years
it has been wrestling in the World Championships. No medals. The only point scorers for the U.S. freestyle team
were two ninth-place finishers and a 10th-place finisher. Instead of piling on and ripping the American performance,
Gable was asking where the U.S. could get better and improve. He has a genuine interest in figuring out the problem. He knows there are wrestlers in this country who have the tal-
ent and ability to be World champions. But how has the U.S. fallen off in freestyle, where it has won only four World-level medals in the last four years? That’s a question Zeke Jones and the U.S. coaching staff are working on figuring out. Jones said the U.S. needs to become tougher and stronger, and technically and tactically better. The U.S. also needs to keep its stars wrestling. Cael Sanderson quit when he was 25. Henry Cejudo is only
23, but he hasn’t wrestled in more than two years. Ben Askren has jumped into Mixed Martial Arts. There is financial incentive to win an Olympic gold medal in
2012. The bonus through the Living the Dream Fund is $250,000 for an American who wins the Olympics in London. Cejudo said in a WIN Magazine interview that he plans to
return, but he has given no other indication that he is returning for another run at Olympic gold. It would be a shame to see a kid that talented decide to hang
it up with so many good years seemingly left in his career. The good news for the U.S. team is that the Olympic qualifier
isn’t until next year. The top six finishers in each weight class in the 2011 Worlds qualify their countries for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England. The U.S. has a year to figure out what it did wrong and make improvements before the 2011 Worlds in Istanbul, Turkey. The U.S. seems to be lacking the fire and intensity right now
that has made it such a successful team in previous years. The American wrestling community needs to pull together and support these wrestlers as they look for improvement over the next year. Complaining and moaning about it isn’t going to help. I ran into Olympic and World champion Tom Brands in the
42 USA Wrestler
lobby of the hotel after the freestyle competition. Tom was in Brent Metcalf’s cor-
Craig Sesker
ner at the Worlds. We talked briefly about the tournament before Brands started
to walk away. He then stopped, and looked back at me. “You can either get tough or cry,” Brands said. It’s time to get tough.
Kudos to Terry Steiner and the U.S. women’s team The lone bright spot for the U.S. at the 2010 Worlds was the performance of the women’s freestyle team. Elena Pirozhkova won a silver medal, Tatiana Padilla earned
a bronze medal and Kelsey Campbell placed fifth. The U.S. women finished fifth in the team standings. Steiner has done a great job with this group of young ath-
letes. The U.S. nearly won a trophy this year, and with World fifth-place finisher Adeline Gray returning from an injury, expect to see the women finish even better in 2011.
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