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get to work. I am proud of this team, this staff and those who support this program.” The U.S. Greco-Roman and freestyle teams fell short
of winning a medal in Moscow. Americans Justin Ruiz (96 kg/211.5 lbs.) and Dremiel
Byers (120 kg/264.5 lbs.) each reached the bronze- medal match in Greco-Roman, but lost those bouts and finished fifth. The U.S. finished without a World medal in Greco-
Roman for the first time since 2003. The U.S. finished 13th in the team standings. “We have a lot of work to do,” said National Greco-
Roman Coach Steve Fraser. “With our current team, we need to do the right things. We need to do more sprint wrestling on our feet, more battling. This is nor- mally our strength. We need to use our conditioning and our fight and bring it back into the game. We need to have better par terre defense. We get turned. If you can’t defend, you are not going to be able to win a medal at the World Championships. We need tougher competition with more foreigners. We need to compete with these guys. That is how we get better. Iron sharp- ens iron.” The U.S. lost seven of the 11 matches it competed in
during the freestyle competition in Moscow. The U.S. did not win a freestyle medal in a World Championships it has competed in for the first time since 1975. The 1975 tournament was in Minsk, Soviet Union.
Minsk is now in the country of Belarus. The U.S. finished in 22nd place, its lowest finish
since it started attending the Worlds in 1961. Obe Blanc (55 kg/121 lbs.) and Les Sigman (120 kg/264.5 lbs.) were the highest U.S. finishers in freestyle. Both wrestlers finished ninth. “It’s terrible,” Jones said when asked about the U.S. freestyle performance. “We just didn’t have enough fight. We need to go home and make some changes. We just weren’t tough enough in the right moments. We need to make practice and training tougher, and we need to get technically better.”
Justin Ruiz placed 5th in Greco-Roman. Larry Slater photo.
USA Wrestler 9
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