I’ve already lost count of what day it is. I just know that the 8:15 p.m. Sunday night NFL game was still on when I woke up this Monday morning in Baku at the glorious Hotel Absheron.
The day began overcast, but the ominous thing was that FILA was set to run a world championship in a venue that probably wasn’t ready to go. Only once have I been to a major wrestling tournament that didn’t start on time. That was in Fargo the one year when the entire first round of Cadet Greco had to be re-done by hand after a computer glitch or something.
After milling around the last two days with a trademark F&M wrestling hat and plaid shorts, business was the word of the day as it was black pants and a button-down shirt. Vertical stripes of course – it’s slimming. Travis Shives said “Hey, you actually do own something that doesn’t say wrestling on it.”
Most of my friends would find that amusing. Note to Gripsnhips, I got you a World shirt brother – going to see what I can get the rest of the week. I really want a Germany shirt, too.
The bus ride this morning was an adventure. It’s a Monday morning in Baku and we took off right at rush hour, around 8 a.m. The large bus we were traveling in with some North Koreans, Algerians and our group from the U.S. would not have had an easy time navigating the crammed streets and NYC-style driving on the way to the venue, so we took a long way. A long way that included this couple-thousand pound bus going the wrong way down a one-way street, crossing into oncoming traffic and then weaving through a roundabout to get to another intersection.
We arrived at 8:30 and immediately were confronted by security on how not to get to the floor. Like I’d mentioned previously, the first word out of anyone’s mouth here is “no.” The most common phrase said by anyone and everyone from FILA to the volunteers is “I don’t know.”
Yeah, we started the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP … about 18 minutes late. That’s just bush league. Can you imagine the NCAA championships starting nearly 20 minutes late? This goes along with the 40 minute delay in weigh-ins yesterday. Who knows how late weigh-ins were today with the next three Greco weights for tomorrow.
I’ve seen youth tournaments run with better organization. I’m still miffed about the lack of press seating. Oh, but FILA’s got their own people in kushy seats with plenty of bottled water. They care not about anyone but themselves. They’re not about the sport, and yes, I’m adamant about this. If you want the sport to be covered adequately, you don’t throw the media into a back room, with an overflowing toilet and people that don’t want to help you.
I’d mentioned about the lack of a press table in my notes, but to put this in perspective. Could you imagine an NCAA Championship with all the heads of each school and officials sitting in padded chairs matside and absolutely no media table. FILA again screwed the pooch on this one. The only World Championships I’d previously covered was in the U.S. and USA Wrestling did a great job at getting us stuff and places to work from within a reasonable view back in 2003 at Madison Square Garden.
No power, no plugs, no seats, and then security got nuts. By the time I said “Screw it,” and went up to the Press Room to get the work done, Craig Sesker of USA Wrestling explained they were throwing people out left and right from the floor.
I had to explain that my pass had “Competition Area” as an allowable region. You can’t explain this to people that A) don’t understand English and B) don’t care.
I think many of the volunteers are doing a fine job, but the security is a bit overboard. The entire bottom row of seating is occupied by police and security.
Craig explained that the security grabbed Steve Fraser – during a match he was coaching – and Momir Petrovic to tell them to move. That didn’t go over well. I sometimes question the rationale of people that don’t work sporting events, it’s like that guy I had words with in Fargo a few years back. I was trying to interview a kid after a match and he was in my face about moving. Hey, I’m trying to do my job, take your little staff shirt and go somewhere and sit and spin.
Am I heated? Absolutely. This is the pits. One thing did get better. The press room does have four nice widescreen TV’s with feeds from each of the four mats, so while I wasn’t on the floor, I did get to watch every match from the U.S. It did hamper my ability to take pictures, but hopefully I can get down to the floor during the finals and take some more, considering it will be the only way I can get results in the later rounds.
The Fila-Wrestling.com web site went down and has been giving me server errors in French … great another language I really have no desire to learn.
I do see some merit in learning Russian, though. If I’m going to be covering wrestling for the next ump-teen years, a third language would be nice to learn. I can handle Spanish, but maybe I’ll get in line with a Master’s Degree here shortly, then learn Russian. Maybe start learning some wrestling languages during the off-season? Rosetta Stone to the rescue!
The one thing I do like about it over here, other than constantly complaining about how FILA doesn’t care about anyone other than themselves, is the knowledge that the people have about wrestling. When two Azerbaijani’s – Mansurov and Bayramov – took to the mats, they were loud, festive and very hopeful. Each time one of their wrestlers just created some space to try to lock their hands underneath and got their opponent six inches off the mat, they cheered in anticipation.
This is something U.S. fans don’t do with Greco-Roman. … I think we’re just so jaded by the constant rule changes and fickle officiating that we just stick with folkstyle – something we can understand easily and not scratch our heads over a random call here and there (well, there are exceptions).
Got some more Americans showing up in the last few days. John Bardis is in the house, as is full-time lawyer, part-time photographer Larry Slater. Mike Duroe looked in deep thought with his laptop and glasses last night at dinner. That guy is a cool cat.
We’re about to start the repechage (stupid French word meaning “wrestleback” – lol) with Lindsey Durlacher having some work to do and Harry Lester is going to be wrestling for one of the Bronzes later in the day.
Quote of the day comes from an un-named journalist from Japan.
“This organization (pause) ……. has no organization.”
Yeah, that’s the quote of the day.
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