Foul Territory

The U.S. Wrestlers walked away from Athens with six medals. One gold, three silvers, and two bronze. Not a bad haul, if you ask me, though I think they were aiming for more. If you look at the media predictions before the games, though, you can see they vastly outperformed expectations both of the American and international wrestling press. Jamill Kelly was likely the biggest surprise, as he never won a state or national championship, and was a newcomer to the international scene. This may have worked to his advantage, as there was little available scouting on the unorthodox former Oklahoma State Cowboy. For all the grief the officials rightly received in these games, they made the right call in Kelly's semifinal match to correctly award him the winning points in overtime.

I was happy that NBC decided to show Cael Sanderson's match tonight in prime time. He added one more accolade to his trophy case by capping his Olympics with a gold medal at 84kg. He looked good in the finals, which is a plus, since he wrestled a very poor tactical match in the pool competition. Lucky for him, he was simply superior to that opponent. He can put that gold medal right next to his four NCAA Outstanding Wrestler awards.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum is Nate Ackerman. I have no idea why his match made it on TV earlier today, but it did. Nate represented Great Britain at these games after getting a wildcard from FILA, for some reason. He is easily the worst wrestler I've ever seen in a televised match. The Armenian competing against him totally outclassed Ackerman. Of course, if I had the opportunity, I'd wrestle in the Olympics, too, and his badness was definitely only in comparison to the Olympic level competition, which is somewhere he clearly did not belong. Calling him a bad wrestler would be a mistake, but calling him the least accomplished Olympic wrestler in the competition would not.

Are Janet and I the only ones who think Lauryn Williams of 100m silver medal fame looks for all the world like a 15 year old boy? Is it wrong to think this? What if it's true?

Saw some Olympic wrestling today. There was a single match of the women's wrestling on television in the 105.5 lb. weight class. Patricia Miranda put a beating on a Venezuelan. I'm taping what should be more wrestling around 4 in the morning. Maybe I'll get more than a single match.

My first thoughts on the women's wrestling, since I'd never seen it at a high level. The only women's wrestling I'd ever seen was Rachel at Messiah, and she wasn't very slick or experienced. This was much different. Though the wrestlers were only 105 pounds, the wrestling was more like men of a much higher weight class. I attribute it to the difference in strength in speed between men and women. Her technique was very good, though, as would be expected at the highest possible levels. I'm looking forward to more, as well as the men next weekend.

Only in that both have such wide arrays of sizes and bodytypes. Wrestling, though, is a rare sport in that a person can have great success without winning the genetic lottery. Heck, I won almost 300 matches between high school and college, and I'm no one's idea of a genetic freak. I was just a guy with above average athleticism and great technique. My teammate Tanner, on the other hand, didn't quite have the experience or the technique, but he probably only wrestled one or two guys in his whole college career that were stronger than him. We both got to wrestle, and we both got to win, even though no one would ever confuse our styles. He would overpower and outwork a lot of guys, while I had the dizzying array of moves. Ok, dizzying might be pushing it, but you get my drift. It's a great sport that is less dependent on your genes than your ability to adapt a style to your body and technical ability. I just wish I could see more of it on television. The only current wrestling scheduled for prime time is the Greco-Roman heavyweight match, in anticipation of a repeat performance by Rulon Gardner. Unfortunately, there is likely no more boring match to watch than Greco-Roman heavyweights. If it weren't for all the positive press in Sydney, I would have said Gardner's match against the Russian was bad for the sport in the sense that almost nothing happened the whole time, and even I didn't quite understand how Rulon scored the match-winning point, though I was one of the 14 people in the country watching who understood the commentators' (admittedly murky) explanation. It was not the kind of match that builds support for the sport. It's tough for the Americans, too, because the international wrestling community is out to get the American wrestlers for some reason. Nearly every major rule change of the past 20 years has at its heart a way to make life difficult for American wrestlers, and I'm not saying anything controversial by stating it. If you combine that with the general superiority of the Russians in the sport, it's a tall order to win a gold medal for an American wrestler, and the 5 minutes of it they may show in prime time is well worth the watch.

Why can't they show the Olympics at a normal hour? Why must everything be stretched out? Why do they tell me what Michael Phelps eats for breakfast? Why do they think I want to see a swimming semifinal? Why do they show a swimming semifinal with no Americans in it, but wrestling is only on at 4 in the morning?

I would watch Paul Hamm go at it in gymnastics, but I have to get up and go to work tomorrow. Thank goodness for the internet. He's Hammtastic!

Let me go on the record stating that this was a great trade for the Red Sox. They could either flip Nomar for some useful players and let someone else deal with the hassle of signing his next contract, or they could keep him, let him sulk all season, and if they made the playoffs, he could choke once again. Frankly, I'll let the Wrigley faithful deal with him in October when he grounds into a double play with the bases loaded and one out. Props to Theo Epstein for getting something of value in return, though I can't wait to hear the Boston crowd try to say Mientkiewicz for the rest of the season. Oh yeah, Vikki, it's pronounced mint-KAY-vitch.

If Nomar really wanted to spend the rest of his career in Boston, he would have signed that contract for 4 yrs/60 mill, back when the Sox were willing to overpay for him by that much. It's a hard pill for the Boston fans to swallow losing a player whose name they could so ludicrously mispronounce, but by all accounts, we're looking at a player who is clearly in his decline phase, not to mention one who can't stay healthy. The next step after this season is deciding what to do with their other high priced sulker who looks to be in his decline phase: Pedro Martinez.