CONDRON, Continued from page 5 when a journalist called.


And they called, from India, Iran, Turkey, Brazil, the U.S., Russia. Thousands of calls, emails, letters and Post It notes on my desk all awaited.


And I spent hours and hours, being the first guy in a place where media requests went to die. All the while looking out my windows at chiseled stone wrestlers, a glistening lake and French mountains all dipped in white.


And I waded in to fight the good fight and try to make a differ- ence.


I’d spent 30 years with the U.S. Olympic Committee and directed the media services for U.S. teams for 15 Olympic Games. It started with a phone call to USA Wrestling Executive Rich Bender on Feb. 12. I had recently retired and let him know if he needed a reliable envelope stuffer, I’m his man. He took me up on it.


And then FILA called. I was on the next plane to Geneva. That was seven months ago.


I’d been involved with the USOC, the IOC, college athletics, U.S. Open golf tournaments. But, I’d never been in anything like this. This was some fast moving water. And it was swirling and not at all smooth. And the media mentality of the federation was straight from the “no comment” school of public relations. “We can’t have media here, something bad might happen,” was the existing phi- losophy.


And I thought, “They are paying all those agencies and con-


sultants and media specialists to get some publicity and promo- tion but they don’t want media around?” Nice. The first few days of the journey began with a visit to the IOC


and its President, Dr. Jacques Rogge. It was a huge moment in the story.


As one IOC staffer said, “I’ve been here 14 years and never seen anyone from FILA.” Everyone thought FILA was a tennis clothing company.


This was a great chance for FILA. There was a ton of media attending the 2020 Olympic Bid Cities Seminar, a great chance for some coverage of our brand new president Lalovic and the IOC president Rogge. “We can’t comment to the media,” said Lalovic as my eyes glazed over in the hall outside Rogge’s office. “We can’t share a confidential conversation with the IOC to the media,” he con- tinued as a large band of reporters hovered just outside in the main hall.


He didn’t want to upset the IOC, and who’d blame him. “You’re president now,” I said after a momentary loss of oxy- gen. “It’s time to start making a difference. The media can be a friend, trust me. Just talk about wrestling,” I said in my potential last conversation ever with him. Then it all started.


Things embedded in the wrestling mentality, slowly started to change.


Lalovic became a master with the media. He was a big guy, smiling, remembering names and he knew his stuff. Lalovic spoke in four languages and became the point man for 30 million wrestlers and a lot of fans. Wrestling, at that moment started rolling in good news. Everyone pulled for us. There were not a lot of folks who said, “Hey this is right, a good decision.” FILA called May “World Wrestling Month” and hoped it would be a good one. It was. In Moscow, on May 18, FILA had an Extraordinary Congress to sort out extraordinary things that would save the sport and


38 USA Wrestler


get us back in the Olympics. That’s when the organization changed… the rules, women in leadership roles, athlete involvement.


And more than 250 million people read about, listened to, or saw news of wrestling in those few days from a block outside Red Square.


The world saw us change as every news agency, a multitude of national television networks, journalists from the top newspa- pers in the world were there to cover the event. With the Russians getting in the new spirit of good news for the sport, it may have been the most successful event in wrestling history. And it was the first time media were ever invit- ed to a FILA Congress of any kind to witness this change. The world was there when we began our Olympic journey. The U.S., Iran and Russia met in a match in Grand Central Station in the heart of New York City. Three nations that couldn’t agree on dinner met in Manhattan. The teams went to the United Nations. Lalovic spoke to the UN. Russia started a cam- paign, “Wrestling…to be Continued.”


In the U.S., the Committee for the Preservation of Olympic


Wrestling channeled all that fury and passion into support and involvement. They brought in Ketchum, the powerful New York Agency that also had the nation of Russia as a client. CPOW made a difference.


177 national sport federations jumped into the battle with spe- cial wrestling days, thousands and thousands of kids went around in “Save Wrestling” shirts. Wrestling held a special event in Olympia, Greece, the birth- place of the Olympic Games. And for the first time in history, women competed in wrestling on the ancient grounds. On the last day of May, Canada held a “Battle of the Falls,” overlooking Niagara Falls. The U.S., Canada and Ukraine, all posed for pho- tos with millions of gallons of water flowing in the background. A special women-only event capped one of the most remarkable months in wrestling history. And it kept going. At the end of May, wrestling was one of the three sports selected to advance to Buenos Aires for the full IOC Session vote. A fighting chance emerged. The group that had knocked the sport out of the Olympic Program, kept us in the Game. We were the only sport to advance in the first round. Baseball-Softball and Squash joined us on the “short-list.” And then came Argentina and the vote on September 8. Wrestling steamrolled to win on the first ballot. It was back in the Olympics, at least through 2024. Who were the heroes? Lalovic for sure, CPOW, the fighting Russians who refused to give up. 177 Wrestling Federations. And millions of folks in the shadows, out of the spotlight, who wore a T-shirt one day supporting the sport. Or the mother of a wrestler who had a cake bake to raise money for a local club. And Wrestlers who carried a “Save Wrestling” sign up 14,000 feet in high, rugged mountain peaks and took pictures and put it up on Facebook. In wrestling, there’s only one dream… and that’s a gold medal in the Olympics. One goal.


And that goal was kept alive on a late spring September day in the magic city of Buenos Aires. And all those 10-year-olds can dream again. Bob Condron was the Director of Media Services for the U.S. Olympic Committee for 30 years. He directed the USA Team media services for 15 Olympic Games. He was named to the IOC Press Commission for 10 years, a committee that oversaw the media operations of the Olympics. He also was Assistant Athletic Director and Sports Information Director at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.


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