OlympicCoach's Blog

We didn't get as many medals as we thought, but at least we got one and it is Bronze.  It was won by someone who wasn't even expected to make the Olympic team, 96 kg wrestler, Adam Wheeler.  What a great job Adam did.  He wrestled his heart out and won the greco team our only medal on the last day of competition.

On our first day of competition, we had 55 kg wrestler, Spenser Mango competiting.  He really started out looking great and he won his first match.  However, he lost his second match and the wrestler who beat him lost after that, which put Spenser out of the tournament.  The tournament is run by a straight bracket system where you advance if you win.  However, if you lose to one of the wrestlers who ends up making it to the finals, you are then eligable to win the bronze by beating everyone of the wrestlers who lost to that same finalist.  Its not the best bracketing system but it is the one we have to work with.  Needless to say day one didn't start out so great. 

Day Two- Jake Deitchler (66kg) the 18 year old and TC Danzler (74kg) the 37 year old.  For his first match Jake drew the world silver medalist from Kyrgystan. The match was tough. Jake lost the first period, he usually tends to start a bit slow, (You have to win 2 out of 3 periods to win the match) In the second period Jake turned it up a bit and was actually leading with 10 seconds to go but  unfortunatley the world silver medallist reversed Jake with three seconds left and won the match.  Well, lucky for Jake, he got a second chance at winning a medal when the Kyrgystany made it to the finals. Although the match went the full three periods Jake fell short and lost .  Jake was crushed, as were we. Considering how young Jake is, we weren't sure how Jake would deal with the pressure of wrestling at the Olympic Games.  Amazingly, he wrestled with a level of confidence that would lead someone to believe that he has been there before.  Deep down Jake really believed in himself, and his chances of winning a medal.  That type of mental toughness, is hard to come by, and is vital to the success of any athlete.  We can only imagine how far, "Kid Dynamite" will go in the future.  

T.C. Danzler drew the Hungarian for his first match. Unfortunatly the talented TC we know didn't show up.  He was taken down three times in the match.  You don't see many takedowns in Greco-Roman wrestling at the Olympic level, never mind three times in a match. The Hungarian lost his next match, and just like that TC's dream of winning an Olympic medal were over. 

Day Three- Brad Vering (84kg) Adam Wheeler (96kg) and Dremiel Byers (120kg)

From the start we figured our best chances of winning medals were going to be our 2007 returning world medallists Brad and Dremiel.  So even though we have no medals going into day three, this was going to be our day. 

Brad started the day out great by crushing his opponent and soon Adam and Dremiel followed suit and did the same.  Second round Brad was wrestling the Armenian and was leading the match with four seconds to go when the Armenian pulled out a incredible lift and threw Brad for 3 points to win the match.  That throw crushed us all.  Brad has been working his butt off for these games and with one simple mistake all those long hard hours were gone.  I felt so bad for him, but there is nothing you can say to make it better.  Brad's work ethic is uncanny and he has set the example for the entire team.  He deserved to win.  The Armenian eventually ended up losing a very close match in the semi-finals and Brad's medal quest and wrestling career was over.  Brad announced his retirement from wrestling before the games. 

Dealing with Brad's loss was tough but we had to regroup and focus on the athletes who were still competing.  Dremiel and Adam won there next matches and advanced ahead.  Due to Adams spot on the bracket Adam was now in the semi-finals.  Dremiel ended up losing his next match in the quarter-finals to the Swede, who ended up losing in the semi's to the reining world champion from Cuba.  The Swede's loss knocked Dremiel, the 2002 world champion and 2006-2007 world bronze medallist, out of the tournament. 

In the Semi's Adam goes up against the German and is wrestling well until he makes a couple of mistakes from the top postition while forcing a technique and ends up getting reversed and loses the match in a heartbreaker.  Being that Adam lost in the Semi's he still had a chance to win the Bronze by winning one more match which was to be contested against the Korean.  It was a close one, and took all three periods but Adam pulled it out and took home the Brozne for his family, wife team and country. 

It is not the results that we thought we would get or wanted but Adam pulling out the Bronze on our last day of competition saved the team from getting "skunked."

Now that the competition is over some of the guys will be heading home, but others, including myself, will relax a bit and indulge in some more Olympic sporting events.  I am excited to be here.  Since I can get tickets to just about any event I want, the hard thing will be is to decide what to go see. 

Since the opening cermonies, things have been pretty much low-key as far as our team goes. This is actually a good thing that the athletes are focused and ready to go.  All of our training sessions are now left up to the individual wrestlers.  Sometimes they will ask the coaching staff for suggestions but for the most part they are on there own and us coaches are there to support them as they get their weight down. 

Our first wrestler to weigh in is Spenser Mango who wrestles at the 55 kg weight class.  This morning he woke up at about 58kg or 6.6 pounds over his weight class.  He will spend most of this morning exercising and spending some time in the sauna getting his weight down to 55kg.  Weigh-ins are from 3:15-3:45 this afternoon.  At the time of weigh-ins Spenser will also draw his first opponent for tomorrow.  Then its time for us coaches to pull out all the footage we of his first oppontent and come up with a "game-plan" and strategy for his first match. 

Taking care of our wrestlers has given us little free time since the ceremonies but I did however, get to see some boxing last night.  I watched two weight-classes fight, one US fighter lost, the other won.  Definitely some good fights going on. 

I have tickets for my family, who came to visit, to see the US Women's basketball team play China tonight. Unfortunatley I, myself do not have a ticket as of yet, but I will work my magic and see what I can come up with. 

Greco competion starts tomorrow.

Sorry about the longer than expected delay. No excuse

Before I go into last night’s opening ceremonies I have to tell you about our trip on Thursday to the Great Wall. After a good workout in the morning, our team along with some other athletes and media from Sports Illustrated and The New York Times took an 80 min bus ride from Beijing to see the Wall. We all had a great time.  We had to park in some small town where we all did some souvenir shopping before taking a gondola up to the wall.  Once up there the team posed for a couple of photo ops then had the chance to take it all in during a 30 min hike. It is hard to imagine that this wall that stretches for 4000 miles was being built in 400 BC.  It is a pretty amazing site to see, even through the haze, how the wall just stretches along the mountain ridge for as far as you can see.  For our trip down from the wall the team decided to bypass the gondola for an alpine slide, which is basically a sled on wheels that runs down a metal track similar to a bob-sled.  We all had a great time. 

The first link below is a picture of the team on the wall from SI.com

The Games are now officially underway. 

 We all got to march in for Opening ceremonies last night and the experience was moving to say the least. It all started out around 5 PM when we had to gather in our opening ceremony outfits for our transport from the village to the venue. Everyone was really excited and photos were being snapped all around. 

Our first order of business for the evening was to be transported to the fencing venue where all the athletes were going to meet President Bush.  Each team also was afforded the opportunity to pose for a picture with the President.  It seemed like the President was very happy to be there and he really took the time to talk to many of us. When I had the opportunity to introduce myself to the President, I mentioned that I was a major in the Marine Corps. President Bush upon hearing that, grabbed me with both hands by the head pulled me close and said, “Major, I love the Marines, thanks for serving, Semper Fi.” Good stuff. 

After meeting the President, there was some more time to mill around and meet the other athletes.  I was able to talk to and get pictures with LeBron James, Jason Kidd, Kobe Bryant, and Coach K.  Beach volleyball stars, Kerri Walsh and Misty May. I also had the opportunity to get a picture with the President’s wife, Laura Bush, very nice woman.  I wish my internet connection was a bit better over here so I could upload my personal photos, but the connection here is too slow, sorry. 

After leaving the fencing hall we walked over to the gymnastics arena where we waited for about 90 minutes before we started our march over to the “Birds Nest” where the ceremonies were already underway. 

Once team USA was called up, we were the140th country to march on, we stared making our way over to the stadium.  The excitement in the group was building as we started down into the tunnel before coming out on the field.  We all started chanting, U-S-A, U-S-A.  It was amazing feeling as all 600+ of us, including our coaches were together as one team.

Marching onto the field is a great experience as 90,000 plus fans are there to cheer us on.  The feeling cannot be topped my many.  What a great time.  After about 90 minutes on the field, the torch was lit in an amazing fashion and we all marched off the field and made our way back to the busses to take us to the village. 

Since I cannot post my own pictures I am attaching a link to a bunch of photos from the USA Wrestling website.  Sorry about that.

Three days till competition.

GO USA!

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_g
allery/0808/oly.thursday.scenes/content.7.html

http://www.themat.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=
2

After two days here in the Olympic Village the guys and myself are learning our way around and starting to settle into our daily routines.  Not everyone, myself included, has adjusted to the time zone yet, Beijing is 12 hrs ahead, but slowly our bodies are making the adjustment. 

Our training schedule is pretty simple at this point in our game plan. We are working out twice a day, once in the morning at 10 and again at 5pm.  One training session is on the mat and the other is doing some type of cardio workout, usually an outdoor game or something to keep things fun.  The mat workout is very quick, no more than 6 min of live wrestling and maybe 15 min of technique "drilling" and that is it. 

We hold our training sessions at Beijing Normal University where the USOC has set up their headquarters for training all the US athletes and is about a 15 min bus ride from the Olympic village.  There are training facilities here at the village, but they are shared by all countries and their athletes so they tend to get a bit crowded.  The USOC leased out the university and brought over our own equipment including all the weights, mats, etc to make sure all the athletes have everything they need to help them prepare for competition.  The USOC has even brought over our own food and chefs to give us all the comforts of home.  The food here in the Village is great as well, but sometimes it is just easier to eat right there near where we train and not have to fight the crowds in the village dining facility.  Eating at the dining facility in the village is pretty cool due to the fact that you get to see all the other countries athletes.  Tonight at at diner, Rafael Nadal, this year's Wimbolton champion was eating dinner at the next table over from me. 

The team is very upbeat and confident about the task at hand of defending our world team title from last year.  We held our first press conference today and everyone was really loose and had a great time with it. 

Below is a link that has some pictures of the team during today's press conference and yesterday's training session which was a soccer game between the "old guys" and the "rookies."  We had a great time, and for the record, us old guys won the game 2-0. There are also some pictures of our team's arrival in Beijing. 

http://www.themat.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=
2&page=1

The entire team met up again in San Jose, CA on 30 July for our in processing and gear issue.  It was great to be with everyone again and all were excited for what lies ahead.  For our two days of in processing we received media and cultural awareness training from the US Olympic committee.  We also received a through review of the rules of the IOC as well as the rules from the sponsors.  Basically no political statements and make sure you wear the right uniform from the correct vendor when giving a press interview.

While we were in CA we had one optional mat work-out for the athletes. The workout was intended to just have the athletes break a sweat and work out some of the stiffness from traveling. 

With all the gear we received, everyone had to re-pack their bags and figure out what equipment we were going to bring to Beijing.  UPS, being a sponsor of the US Olympic team, offered us free shipping of the gear we didn't want to bring with us. 

Our flight over to Beijing left from San Francisco before noon on 1 Aug and we arrived around 2:30 pm on 2 August.  On the same flight with our team were other Olympians as well.  Some teams which were on our flight are easier to spot than others, like the women's volleyball team, but there were some track & field athletes and a couple of fencers as well.  Overall everyone did pretty well on the flight and now everyone is trying to get their bodies adjusted to the time change.

Once we arrived in China, the Beijing organizers and US Olympic committee personnel took great care of us.  They were able to get us through customs and immigration without a hitch then loaded us on busses for the 40 min ride to the Olympic Village. 

I haven't been here long yet, only four hours to be exact, but from what I have seen so far, the village itself is incredible.  The accommodations are great and so is the entire landscape.  We are living in appartment buildings that were built for the games and the entire US delegation, is spread out in two of the nine-story buildings.  I really didn't get to see much more than that because after getting settled into our rooms, getting a quick bite to eat, then attending yet another brief about the village and all its amenities it was already dark.  Maybe next post I will get some pictures. 

One thing for sure, all the athletes are fired up and ready to get these games started.   We have a practice scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, and we will continue training until we compete on the 12th. 

-Going for gold.

Today marked the last day of our three-week training camp here at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.  All the members of the Greco-Roman wrestling team are pretty much injury free and ready for the next phase in our plan to bring home medals. 

Over the past two weeks of our training we have been putting the athletes through some grueling work-outs.  The focus of these past two weeks was to increase the volume and push the wrestlers to their physical limits. We have to train them to be able to score and defend when they are exhausted.  We accomplish this by putting several fresh and more rested partners on them while the Olympians themselves continue to grind through the training session.  This also serves as a great mental tool by requiring the athletes to reach down and find a way to execute and get the job done when they think they can’t go any further.  We also try to simulate different match situations they may face in competition where, for example, they are losing by a point and need to score with 20 seconds to go.  The more familiar they are with the different situations they may be faced with at the Games the better chance the wrestlers will have of executing their techniques. 

Now that the training camp is complete, the wrestlers who don’t reside here at the Training Center and even some of the one’s that do will take several days off the mat, let their bodies recover and spend some time with family.  That isn’t to say that the wrestlers won’t be doing anything over the next four days because they still have to keep their weight under control and will maintain their fitness levels through running or other types of cardio work-outs. 

Towards the end of next week the wrestlers will be back on the mat training once again but now the sessions will be much shorter with high intensity.  The live wrestling sessions will be limited to six minutes (the length of a match) which will usually be followed by some “drilling” and fine-tuning of their techniques. 

The next time the entire team will be together again will be on 30 July in San Jose, CA where we will be conducting our in processing and gear issue before heading over to Beijing on 1 Aug. 

The pictures I have uploaded are from our wrestling room and weight room during our training sessions.  The third photo is of myself with Olympians Jake Deitchler and Brad Vering on one of our training hikes near Canon City, CO. We managed to work in a little fly-fishing on that day as well. 

-Going for Gold

The Greco-Roman Wrestling team just finished up the first of our three week training camp here at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

For our training this past week the coaching staff still limited the amount of our training on the mat to only two sessions. Our main focus this past week was maintaining our fitness levels by performing sport-specific exercises in the weight-room and outdoor running sessions in the mountains. At this point we cannot make major changes in a wrestler’s style; we can only fine-tune them a bit more. 

During the mat sessions we focused mainly on our “zone-work.” The zone, on an international wrestling mat, is the one meter border area of the mat before the out-of-bounds line. A point is scored if you manage to get your opponent out of bounds. Many points in the standing position are scored in the “zone” because the amount of room of a defending wrestler has to maneuver is limited when he cannot back up any further. There is a lot of technique involved in attacking your opponent in the zone without going out of bounds yourself.  Besides the zone work we also worked on some key positions in the par-terre or down position. 

This upcoming week we will be spending more time on the mat working on improving some of the individual weaknesses we see in our Olympians.

There are many other athletes, besides wrestlers, here at the training center preparing for their shot at an Olympic Gold. The excitement of all these athletes and amount of focus they have to maintain throughout their training is amazing. 

-Going for Gold

Our Olympic wrestling team roster is finally set. Emotions ran high and dreams were either achieved or crushed at the US Olympic wrestling team trials held at the Thomas and Mack center in Las Vegas from 12-15 June.  In Greco-Roman wresting, the US has qualified six of the seven weight classes to compete in the Olympic Games in Beijing. 

Unlike most countries in the world, the US determines our Olympic team through a competition tournament.  It doesn't matter that you qualified the weight-class for the Olympic Games or that you have been a medalist at previous world championships.  You must still compete through the trials to win a spot on the Olympic team.  This method of establishing a team makes for a "gut-wrenching" experience for the coaches involved.  At this level in the sport of wrestling, the amount of international experience a wrestler has under his belt has a lot to do with winning medals.  That isn't to say it can't happen, because it did in the 2000 Sydney Games with Garrett Lowney capturing a bronze medal at 96 kg, but having experience on a world level definitely helps. 

At this year's Olympic Trials, the Greco team had the possibility of putting five former world medalists on the 2008 Olympic team.  Out of the five only two; Brad Vering 84 kg(2007 Silver)  and Dremiel Beyers 120 kg (2002 gold, 2007 bronze)  made this years Olympic team. 

Nonetheless, our US Greco team is still the reigning world championship team and the one to beat at this summer's Games.  We have a tough squad of wrestlers who are hungry to prove themselves on the world's largest stage.   We are going into these Games with some new faces that our competition won't recognize but will be caught completely off-guard by the talent they will unleash.  I am looking forward to witnessing all the upsets. 

Presently the team is still recovering from the grueling competition of the Trials, and only working on some cross-training, off the mat stuff.   Next week starts our four week training camp at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.   Needless to say I am quite excited about our team and working with the best wrestlers in the United States as we prepare to fulfill their Olympic glory. 

-Going for Gold