Coach Vierling's Canadian Women's Wrestling Blog

two medals last night and two more chances today

2011-10-24T13:53:00.001-07:00

Im sure most of you following this blog have been checking the results from last night. If not Sunny Dinsa was defeated by Tervel Dlagnev of the USA in the finals at 120kg. Sunny had a great tournament making the finals, yet I think a bit of nerves and lack of exposure to high calabre matches was apparent. Dlagnev ,this years bronze medalist at worlds, controled Sunny and pick his spots to capitalize. This type of match is big for Sunny to experience. Getting to wrestle a poised and precise top senior opponent will help his growth as a wrestler. He is a great kid, fun to work with loads of ability to develop.

Jeff Adamson dropped the first round to Brazil in his bronze final yet regrouped to win the following two rounds. For Jeff he seemed to build momentum throughout the match and allowed his fitness and toughness to break the Brazillian athlete in round three. jeff scored two take downs and two turns to seal the deciding round. It was a great testament to jeffs growing mental state on the mat.

Today our men (Ryley Walker, Matt Gentry and Khetag Pliev) found ourselves in a dual meet with the powerful Cuban team members. Walker lost to an extremely explosive Cuban. Ryley took the lead 1-1 late in the first round and almost trap arm gut wrenched the cuban athlete. With time expiring the Cuban powered through Ryley on a double and scored an out of bounds point with one second left. The second round Ryley got caught in a firemans carry by a tremendously explosive athlete. The Cuban unfortunately lost to Puerto Rico in the semis and Ryley's tournament ended.

Matt Gentry opened the tournament with a victory over the athlete from Peru. He then dropped a tough three round decision to Blanco of Cuba in the semi finals. This is the second three round decision Blanco has taken from Gentry this year. Blanco is definately a talented athlete with great ability to scramble. I think Matt can be more effective against him but he needs to work with his hands a little more to create more openings. Gentry scored late in the second round to come from behind and win the round but was unable to break through Blanco's positioning in the third period. Blanco will face USA's fenom Jordan Burroughs in the tournament finals.

Pliev started the tournament with an exciting victory over former World Bronze medalist Batista of Cuba. This was an extremely back and forth battle and the onmat official struggled at time to keep up with the action. The first round went to Batista via a clinch, the second to Pliev on a late take down that went to video review. In the third and deciding round Pliev was awarded the clinch position, yet Batista got his leg back and brought Khetag down to the matt undeneath him and seemed to be in great position to stall out the round for the victory. Pliev did an outstanding job of regaining his body position up of of the mat and ended up scoring the match winning point after about 20 seconds of hard wrestling in the clinch position. The Cubans wanted to protest, yet had used their challenge earlier in the match. For me it was one of the best victories I have witnessed Khetag have. Unfortunetly he drew Varner on the USA 15 minutes after this incredibly tough three round battle. Varner (current world Bronze medalist) took no time putting the pressure on the Pliev. He actually shot on the whistle in both rounds. Pliev battled gamely but ultimately was lacking gas to battle such a physical competitor. he dropped a two round decsion to Varner.

The final session both Matt and Khetag will face the MEXICAN athlete for a bronze medal. At 60kg Mexico is also in the finals. The venue has been amazing this week, and tonight should be by far the craziest. I am excited thinking about it. It will be very important for our men to wrestle tough and aggressively (and cleanly). We all know there is often pressure and advantages given to the home town athletes. Thus far much of the officiating has not been strong. I believe both athletes can finish the tournament with podium placements. Similar to Adamson last night they need to let their ability's shine through, no matter how difficult it gets!

Sorry if this entry is a little rushed... Limited time to write.

Wish us luck,

Go Canada!

Coach Vierling

Takahashi Bronze, with two more medal chances tonight

2011-10-23T13:38:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Quick update. The men came out hard this morning and competed fairly well. Jeff started off the morning in tough against the Cuban athlete. He wrestled hard yet, got caught up a few times in an underhook (which the Cubans are famous for). The First round was decided on a zone point. In the second Jeff did a better job anticipating the Cubans pressure yet gave up a take down and turn midway through, he answered back with his own take down late in the round on a low single. It was no surprize the Cuban advanced to the final (vs Herbert of the USA). jeff now has Brazil, a opponent he has defeated for the bronze tonight.

Young Takahashi started out the tournament with a win versus Chile. After giving up the first takedown in the match he picked up the pace and wrestled from a number of positions. He showed good focus and intensity. In the second round, he powered through a beautiful double and planted his opponent on a double flat out of bounds. His next match was versus Blanc of the USA (I almost got a yellow card following the first period which actually leads to a 5000 fine if it happens). he shot in on Blanc and poped him up off of the bottom and looked in great position to finish and score. Blanc sizzored his head and joined his feet to prevent getting scored on for at least 5 seconds. The referre even pointed at the legs but then failed to call the illegal action. Blanc ended up stalemating the action because of it. And then scored late in the second round to win the round. So I walked to the centre of the mat after the first to have a little discussion with him (somehow he did not appreciate what I had to say!). I was furious and pushed it as far as I thought I could. After the match Milina and Touchi told me I was 100% correct in my interpretation of the action. Doesnt matter did not change the fact this guy screwed up! In the second round Blanc scored early, and as Tak tried to work his way back into it he tried a throw and gave up another point and as he tried more and more he left himself open to counter by a far more experienced Blanc. As there were ony three on that side Steven will be awarded the bronze tonight.

At 66kg Lue had a close 3 round match with Taylon Ware! Each round was decided by one sequence. In the first Lue scored and turn Ware twice with a laced ankles. In the second Ware hit a high crotch and after a great scramble finished the attack. In the third no one was able to break through until 10 seconds left in the round. Ware managed to secure the match winning takedown, just when it looked like a clinch was going to be the decider. For Ryan being so competitve with the US number one senior should do nothing but boost his confidence! Unfortunately Ware lost to Cuba next ,match and Ryan is done.

Finally Dinsa, was the most dominant athlete that I saw this morning. He easily dispached the Puerto Rico athlete in 7-0, 7-0 (one take down and gut wrench, hold, gut wrench). Then threw and pinned his next opponent in a over under early in the first round. He will face Tervel Dlagnev in the finals tonight!

I need to run for the bus!!!

Later ,

Go Canada,

Coach Vierling

Carol Huynh wins Pan Am Gold, Verbeek narrowly silver

2011-10-22T21:43:00.000-07:00

Well, as usual, some memorable moments for the women on the mat today.
I was going to bed but thought I better come write things down while they are still fresh.

The morning session was okay, both Tonya and Carol progressed through there first two oppenents. They both had slowish starts (I would say), yet got the job done against some physical defensive minded athletes. Justine found herself in a dog fight right off of the bat. the Argentina athlete wrestled a very tough elusive match and ended up beating Justine narrowly. There were opportunities to capitalize yet missed by fractions of a moment here and there. In the end Justine was devistated with the decision. It was a hard fought battle, yet not what she had trained so hard for. The Argentina girl then beat the Cuban the first round of the semi finals, and was leading the match late in the second and was trying to run the cuban to her back on a double to seal the victory but got body locked through (the call could have gone either way as the cuba went straight to her back but she was awarded 3) the argentina girl now down in the second forced an attack, got put on her back and pinned... The Cuban then went onto the final and dominated the USA athlete enroute to the gold medal. What a frustration!

In the finals Carol stepped out against Clarrisa Chun of the USA. A World Champ vs Olympic champ, and the match did not dissapoint! Chun shot on the whistle in the very first round and the scramble that followed was great with Carol eventually sitting on Clarrissa's head and crotch lifting her straight to her back. The american tried to really push the pace through the first round, and some great scrambles turned into no points. With about 15 seconds left Clarissa caught Carol in a beautiful arm throw for three points! Carol was now lossing 3-2 and got up with about 5 seconds left and firemans carried Chun! Chun managed to spin on her head and not go to her back... no points were awarded but it definately should have been at least one. Not worth a protest as it would not have won the round. In the corner Carol quickly refocussed and did not seem phased by the fact chun had stoled the round in the dying seconds. The second round was as entertaining as the first! Both athletes having some good action and failed attacks, yet carol eventually hit a nice high crotch and was trying to finish when chun (always dangerous) almost took it over and picked her to her back... Carol battled back to good position and did NOT pull of the attack and eventually followed it up with a finish out of bounds. There was a great flurry to finish the match. Carol was winning 1-0 And Chun was pressuring when Carol reattacked into Chuns legs... Chun got her legs back and tried to pop Carol over and had it so tight (im not sure how Carol managed to not go over), Chun then shot under Carol on the attack and as they scrambled through the action carol Knee tapped Chun straight to her back and settled ontop looking for the fall. The whole arena erupted (they LOVE Carol here).. I was a little worried they were not going to call the fall as carol held her on her back pretty close for about ten seconds, finally with about two seconds left the fall was confirmed. What a match!!! Carol has now won ever Games she has entered (FISU 2005, Pan Ams 2007, Olympics 2008, Commonwealth 2010, and Pan Ams 2011) quite an amazing feat for an amazing woman!

Tonya's final was just as anticipated and once again was against Helen Marlouis of the US. Tonya beat helen in the finals of the Dave Schultz tourney this past season, and Marlouis had a good Worlds placing fifth at 55kg. The first round was really close between these two... Tonya was unable to get off a clean attack as Marlouis was clamping her up and diving underneath. Tonya was not getting a full sprawl off and had to settle for a stalemate on a few occasions when defensively she is very good at scoring. The first clinch was awarded to Marlouis after the ball draw and she finished Verbeek to the ground. During the break we talked about the need to commit to solid offense and that is exactly what Tonya did. She hit two solid shots, the second one scored and her powerful par tarre was too much! Tonya laced Helen for 6 points and a 7-0 round. The third round started and both athlete struggled to get off a quality attack against each other. There were some very good scrambles, yet no scoring. In the dying seconds Helen hit a leg shot that Tonya countered and caught in a front head lock. Two things played into the final 10 seconds... Tonya had poped Marlouis over on the front head lock in their previous match, and Verbeek was afraid that she may go to the clinch AGAIN. So as time expired she tried her pop over and slipped off of Helen to give up two points. It was very frustrating to watch, yet I understand Tonya did not want to go to the clinch again! Helen was awarded two points and the match. A tough pill to swallow... I felt bad for Tonya, yet she wrestled a tough match (not quite her best, yet she needed a break off of the Worlds and it is hard to wrestle this tourney with a shortened prep).

I was proud of our group as always! Whether our hand gets raised or not, people dont understand how much effort, heart, and soul goes into this damn sport!!! It was Carol's night tonight, yet we are a great team! Julie Healey from the Canadian Olympic Committee was congratulating my later on the performances. I explained to her, I am always proud of our team. All four are capable of winning this tourney (Leah was gold , and Justine silver in Feb at the Pan Am championships). She reminded ME to keep our eye on the Prize in London. She was Team leader with Women's Hockey in 2002. They lost to the american's 8 times heading into the olympic games that year (zero wins)! Yet they still won the gold medal!

After doping control our team had a great evening of laughing and eating steak sandwiches and chocolate shakes (Our support staff had one or two drinks) in the international zone. The day is done, and we competed tough!

Tomorrow our freestylers, hit the mat. It is our "youngster day" for the men! Takahashi starts with Chile, Lue gets USA, and Dinsa has Puerto Rico, the "older man" Adamson has Cuba. I am excited to get to coach and see these guys compete!
K im going to bed!

Go Canada,
Coach Vierling

Women start today

2011-10-22T05:24:00.000-07:00

Nothing like an icy cold shower to get you ready for a competition day!
Good morning from Guadalajara. If you have been following the results then you know it has been a frustrating couple of days for the greco guys, and for our women too a bit. Leah callahan failed to make weight yesterday, long story short she was given the call to come her on short notice and making scratch weight is no small feet. She worked incredibly hard and for the last four days, but miss very narrowly. She is devistated, but we all still love her nonetheless.
The rest of our girls weighed in and recieved their draws.

Carol has the winner between ESA and ARG first match. (both Columbia and USA are on the other side of the draw). We are not going to take anyone lightly here. I watch tape on both. The Arg girl had a good match with KAZ at the worlds who is a player for sure.

Tonya has Peru first, this girl was at the Canada Cup camp this year and is quite a defensive solid athlete. So Tonya will have to get after her. She will likely have ECU next, ECU beat Anna Gomis of France at the Worlds this year and won a few matches, she is long and another good athlete. (Usa, Ven, and Brazil are all on the otherside).

Justine has Arg first round. Arg girl lost to USA at the worlds this year. She is a pretty dynamic girl and actually hit some nice attacks on the american. She is a bit all over the place so Justine will have to track her down. Her next match would likely be Cuba. The Cuban girl is a very explosive athlete, she was in a bronze match at the worlds last year and beat Lappage this year at the Cerro Pelado tourney. She is a stud and has an incredibly powerful double. (USA, Col, and Ven are on the other side).

I need to grab a bite then grab the bus, its almost an hour to the competition. The session should be very short this morning. I will blog after lunch with the results.

Wish us luck.
Go Canada!

Coach Vierling

Greetings from Guadalajara, Life in the village

2011-10-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

Hello to everyone back home.

To all the followers of this blog, I welcome you to the 2011 Pan American Games. Please be patient with my coverage and my writting skills. I was told my grammar and sentence structure "is as painful as a well executed BUTT DRAG!" That is an actual quote from a good friend and athlete of mine. For those of you who are not actual wrestlers, lets just say that is not a compliment! Here goes nothing!

We arrived to the athletes village after a couple of flights and a fairly full day of travel. Driving up to the village you can clearly see the Pan American Stadium where the opening ceremonies were held, the games torch is lit prominently above the stadium for all to see. It is a symbol that gives me goosebumps every time I see it, a symbol of the events and memories to be created here in Mexico. The actual village is nestled in a fairly picturesque setting, with lots of trees and hills surrounding the somewhat temporary feeling village. This country setting is surprising given we are in the midst of a large city that boasts over 4 million inhabitants!

Our apartment building is a short walk from the transportation mall, maybe five minutes. We were met promplty at the airport and with minimal delays and with a police escort were driven directly to the village. It is always exciting to walk through the security gates and get to see the our home for the next week or so. Each of the buildings is splattered with the flags of the country staying there. Canada being one of the most prominent countrys at these games. As we walked into OUR building is was nice to see a number of a banners the COC has created for these Guadalajara games. Athletes and coaches who were memorable parts of Canada's games success. There to greet all Canadian team members and inspire them. Pictures of Daniel Igali, Tonya Verbeek, and Carol Huynh! Proud faces, and all three testaments of what can be accomplished when facing great opportunity.

I was kicked out of the coaches lounge last night and decided to send off the rest of the blog this morning. The condo units we are living in are quite nice, holding upto 13 people in three bedrooms and there are actual beds in the living room. I feel like our team was fortunate in getting asigned actual bedrooms (for our staff and athletes) and not being stuck in the living room (much more private). The view from my room is absolutely beautiful. There is a lush green courtyard with a nice fountain in the middle of it, there is a beautiful hillside beyond our buildings with a great walking jogging path up the hill overlooking the Games stadium and village. I went up there this morning and the view was something I will definately remember. As you start the walk up there is a great relaxing area with an outdoor pool low on the hillside. It is quite a sight seeing all of the different types of athletic bodies already starting to gather in the morning. Tall, short, thin, thick, a very athletic and attractive crowd! They also have a tent beside the pool where they have build a temporary steam sauna, pretty cool. They have a great training facility with a bunch of cardio equipment on a catwalk between two bulding. The room is large and well equipped on the 4th floor and is all glass overlooking the village courtyard on one side and the pool and hillside on the other (really a fabulous set up).

Today we had two of our Men begin the Greco competition. Shawn Daye-Findley at 66kg, and Eric Feunekes at 84kg. Don Ryan headed over with Chris Stefopulos. We have all been givin cell phones to use for the duration of the games. A great luxery in helping us stay in touch and keep ontop of all the potential distractions and areas of confusion inherent at these games. According to Chris the competition venue was 45minute drive from the village this morning. They have two mats opperating and everything there ran fairly smoothly, which is a pleasant surprise.

I stayed back in the village with our Women who have a number of obligatory meetings to get through today ontop of getting their weight under control for the weigh in tomorrow. Our schedule includes, going to outfitting at 2 pm to collect all our team Canada gear for the games, a saftey briefing and team orientation at 3:30, and a sit down with our Doctor Dory Boyer to go through a comprehensive medical/supplimentation screening prior to the competition. Being in a multi sport games is always a real challenge as there are so many distractions and hoops that our group needs to jump through prior to actual competitions. Nontheless, our girls seem in pretty good spirits as usual. Making scratch weight will be a little bit of a challenge, we will take them to a special facitity tonight that has a sauna and good cardio area at around 6:30pm. As you can see the day fills up fairly quickly. Whew...

Our freestyle team arrives today and it will be very important that we have clear communication from this point forward asto where and when things will happen, for the different team members. The food hall is typical of a major games, yet not quite as well done as India last year for the commonwealth. The selection is a little limited, yet adequate. It is essentially a caferteria the size of a football field. There is a great athlete lounge, coaches lounge, and medical centre the Canadian Olympic committee have created in the main level of our builing. Athletes have access to snacks and food and an actual nutritionist goes out daily and buys special items that are requested. There are ample safe drinks (juices, gaterade, bottled water, good coffee), as well as fruit, cerials, bars, etc. This save the athletes having to walk to the food hall everytime they need a snack. Also provides a great relaxing and socializing location. I am in the coaches lounge as I write this (both lounges have internet access, and a games tv feed). The medical center is a nice walk in clinic where athletes and staff can get any immediate issues dealt with, on top of treatments they have a few inflatable tubs set up (have not felt the temp) but I assume Cold and Hot for theraputic purposes.

Finally there is an international zone near the entrance ajacent to the transporation mall. It is essentially a mini city centre for athletes and approved outsiders (family members, sponsors, etc.) to come together and mix. They have a large outdoor stage and according to Chris Stef. they have had varying entertainment each evening. There is an outdoor pub, social area and many kiosks and things for people to see and do. An internet cafe, a food court which includes a Starbucks coffee. There in a Scotiabank, general store, bakery, sight seeing company, souvenier store and general venders with Mexican trinkets. As well as lots more. One of the nice things about a setting like this is I am able to sit down an socialize with some of my various important people. Last night their were a number of coaches in the international zone. It is a great place to do a little business in an informal setting. I am able to chat with Canadian Olympic Committee members, or support staff, or other national coaches and create relationships that will serve us well in the future. Last night I spent part of the evening talking to Terry Steiner (the US National Coach). Our programs have a good relationship that has been fostered over the last ten years. We exchange ideas, and planning, and do our best to create a future plan that will benefit both programs. It was a great evening. Chatting to Don, Chris, Jessica, Terry, Billy Wood and others. Lots of great inside wrestling stories (about Cael Sanderson as an example) and so many other things. I could probably write an interesting blog just about all the stories and stuff going on in the wrestling world alone. I know a bunch of the huge wrestling fans who read this would love that!

Anyways, I need to grab lunch now before the meetings this afternoon.

I have done my best to fill you in on the surroundings and try to give you a feel for being part of the team. I hope people are excited back home!

I will blog about the guys today when I get the report from Chris and Don.

Wish us luck!

Go Canada!

Coach Vierling

Team Canada 2nd after final day of Women's Wrestling

2011-09-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

Well the final day of women's competition ended an hour ago. When the dust settled to my pleasant surprize our Women's Team was 2nd in the team standings which was the best news I can deliver from the day. It was a really competitive team race this year and honestly I thought USA, Russia, Mongolia might pass us as we had entered the day with a lead on them.

At 67 kg Martine Dugreniers reign as World Champion came to an end. She opened the tournament with a fall vs Kazakstan, and looked to be wrestling well. In her next match, she lost a heart breaking match vs the Chinese athlete (the eventual World Champion). I know Martine is very dissapointted with the final outcome of her tournament (7th place). As usual she was effective in being agressive and initiating her attacks early on in her matches. Yet the tough defense of the Chinese athletes proved to be her key to a World Championship today. In her repachage match Adeline Gray of the USA came out aggressively and managed to score in the dying seconds of both rounds versus Dugrenier. It was just not meant to be this afternoon for Martine.

At 72kg Ohenewa Akuffo opened the tournament with a tough decision versus long time rival Kyoko Hamiguchi of Japan. It felt good to see one of our girls beat a member of this Japenese team that has been the dominating force in women's wrestling. But it was the USA's day today (against our athletes)... in her quarter final Ohenewa lost by fall to Ali Bernard of the United States. Leading late in the second round Bernard shot under Akuffo and kept driving up and into on a double... Ohenewa clamped and tried her over/under throw (lateral drop or pancake, man wreslting has funny names). Bernard almost rotated through to her back but managed to twist and stop Akuffos momentum and then settle on for the fall. It was hard to watch a third winnable match slip from our finger tips today! The risk of the counter attack worked for Akuffo at last tears Worlds yet Bernards suppliness and flexibility makes her hard to throw. We will have to get even with our American friends on another day, today they got the better of us... Perhaps the Olympics!

I want to congradulate our team for there efforts here and this past season. Being second as a team (in the largest Women's Worlds Ever) I believe is a testiment to the system of wrestling we built in our country. Our school systems have embraced wrestling as a great sport for women by and large. We have a Women's University league in the CIS that is exemplary (around the world) and provides many our national team athletes quality training environments and access to a quantity of tough matches that helps them to grow as wrestlers. We also have some of the most motivated and inspiring coaches I could ask for. They make being a Women Wrestler an exciting opportunity! Our women are seen as wrestlers first and not stereotyped based on there gender. This is a tough sport that teaches so much about the character of those who do it. Over the years our national team has been seen as skilled and tough, worthy of stepping up against the very best and expecting success!!! This is a tradition I want every wrestler to embrace (and even to build on!!!!). So many of our best up and coming wrestlers spent the summer training with this team and attending their own competitions and camps. This result is a testament to there drive and support too!

This December I sit down with Own the Podium and present our final game plan moving into the London Olympic Games. I will also begin to present our process and "strategic planning" for RIO and the 2016 Olympic Games!

My hope is that the large amount of people who have tuned into this blog for the World Championships will continue to help our sport grow and gain support! One email I received while I have been here was from an old friend who loves how our team represents us on the world stage... He vowed to donate $250 to the quest for gold program for every world medalst we got. I think this is fantasitic!!! Somewhere out there there must be a corporation that would be impressed by the skills and dedication our athletes display... Food for thought...

We are quickly transitioning into the men's competition. David Tremblay lost his opening match today versus the KGZ athlete. Tomorrow: John Pineda, Jeff Adamson, and Hetag Pliev all hit the mats tomorrow.

That is more than enough for now...

It has been a heck of an emotional ride...

Thanks for tuning in and supporting our team!

Coach Vierling

Day 2 recap, and Day 3 about to start!!!

2011-09-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

After an emotional day two... I have regrouped for the final day...

I asked Paul to write the blog last night, I just needed a break a little break.

It was a day of highs and lows and believe it or not we didnt quite get the breaks we needed at the times we needed them which was frustrating (my foot is fine...).

At 63kg I felt horrible for Justine for the way that her match turned out. The bottom line is I feel very responcible for the outcome (which I feel horrible about!)...

I could not find any matches on the Turkish girl and since Justine has such a great track record against the majority of the athletes in the weight I made a classic coaching mistake. You never want to scare your athlete, you want them to feel confident and ready going into a match. So I told Justine she would be fine in the first match. From the first whistle the girl was pawing justine diectly in the face and backing away, yet justine eventually hit a single leg toward the end on the first round only to be countered and thrown for three as she came upto her feet! She continued to scramble and came out on top but failed to turn the turkish girl (a little panicked).

She then won the second round, yet was a little gun shy as she was now a little worried that her opponent was a bit of a funky leg defense athlete. In the third round the Turekish girl tried to goto the clinch, and Justine took a few shots but didnt pursue them the way that I know she can. The round ended 0-0 and (our bad luck) the turk got the clinch and won the match. I felt horrible!!!! I could have gotten Justine a bit more activated and ready to go to war. I fell into a classic mistake of looking ahead at the long list of athletes coming down the pipe and failed to ensure she was really mentally preped for a dirty, abrasive, passive athlete. (I couldnt feel worse, for an athlete who has dedicated herself to working soooo very hard to be great). The bottom linbe is Justine is a tremendously skilled athlete and we got unfocussed and didnt let those skills shine through (and in our sport, it happened to many other great athletes yesterday too).

Amanda had a very good day at 59kg and lost a tight match for the bronze medal vs AZE, last years silver medalist. She opened the tournament with a win, lost to Ukraine (the eventual champion), she defeated the Chinese girl in what I thought was a really focussed effort. Amanda is a very quick and agile athlete, and she did a great job of going after her opponents and getting into the match! She usually was on their legs with an attack within the first 15 seconds of every round, which honestly most of our other girls have not done. I would have liked to see amanda on the podium yesterday. She definately was capable of it! I hope she is happy with her first World Championships effort and placement. She definately showed she can be a serious competitor at the weight!

Tonya had the day I anticipated she would. She has been wonderful this year and has really rededicated herself to the love of this sport and training (something, I thought she lacked, just a bit heading into last years worlds). She gutted her way through multiple three round matches (Russia, Azerbijian, Ukraine, and Japan)! She earned her spot on the podium yesterday for sure! Paul already talked about the dramatic world final! I would encourage people to watch on the website. She was penalized with a Caution and one point at about the 1 minute point of the third round (this gave Japan the lead). I was furious!!! The japanese girl was not attacking, just faking and the refs went with t. It was the only call like that I have seen in the tournemament so far!!! Saori took a low single and again they gave her a point (prematurely, in my opinion). she never actually finished the leg attack and Tonya ended up countering her across her back for two points! Both of Yoshidas first two points were not earned!!! The thing that makes me so pissed is that Yoshida is such a great wrester (the most successful athlete in the history of the sport, she is the womens Satiev). It bugs me that the refs think they need to "help her out"! We didnt get the breaks, bottom line, in that match that you sometimes need to get, to win that gold medal. Tonya should hold her head high! She is one hell of a competitor and we all know a true champion for Canada!!!

I didnt wanna take too long this morning with this as I am watching video. I am proud of all our girls! They are amazing athletes, competitors and ambassadors for Canada Wrestling! One match can make you feel great or be absolutely devastating to how you feel. All of them need to see the big picture, they have all done increedible things on a wreslting mat!

TODAY, our final day for the women. We are in second place as a team and things are tight! I really just want our final two athletes to step onto the mat and be ready to go this afternoon.

At 67kg Martine has KAZ first match, yet this is a different athlete than the one she faced at last years final. Here second match would be the winner between USA and China. She will need to be ready. I am very confident that Martine is the athlete to beat at the weight class. A few of the key competitors have relocated to 63kg or 72kg for the Worlds. YET, as we already learned the hard way, no one can be overlooked. Each match is an individual effort and you gotta go make it happen (each time).

At 72kg, Ohenewa is the only athlete in her weight with a first round bye. She will likely move right into a big match up with Kyoko Hamiguchi of Japan in the second round of wresting. They have met a number of time and it should be exciting to see how it plays out again today. As Jessie MacDonald did, I hope ohenewa is ready to step up and beat Japan! She doesnt need to be intimidated by anyone! I know Kyoko is not taking many attacks, and will likely try and win a tactical match.

I am excited to get back out there today and finish this tournament off! I have gotten so many compliments about our team at the tournament. But lets face it, people are not telling me anything I dont already know... Our girls a great competitors!

Wish us luck!

Go Canada!!!!

Coach Vierling

Day 2: Verbeek wins a silver medal, Gerhart 5th

2011-09-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

Paul Ragusa here, I am writing todays blog entry for my roommate Leigh, he is currently icing perhaps his broken foot as he had an unfortuate accident is a chair or I should say the chair was ufortuate as it met with a swift kick. We have been sitting here discussng the days events and we are spent. Today was an emotional rollercoaster, with the highest of highs and the lowest if lows. Our day did not start well with a first round loss in 63 kgs. Justine lost a close match against Turkey. Justine out wrestled her Turkish opponent, however the result was not in our favour as we drew the wrong colour in a third round clinch. The Turkish wrestler unfortunately lost her following match knocking Justine out of the competition. Justine was one of out medal hopefuls, however I have complete confidence she will learn from this expereince and will be a world medalist in years to come.

Amanda Gerhart at 59 kg rallied and won her first match against Brazil. Amanda dominated the match and served as a good warm up for her next match against Ukraine. Amanda's match against Ukraine was quite a battle, but ultimately Ukraine's hand was raised in the end as Amanda had dfficulty dealing with her opponents powerful front lock. On a positive note the Ukrainian wrestler went on to the finals, therefore bring Amanda back into the competition. Amanda faced China in her first repechage and had regrouped from her loss to Ukraine. Amanda controlled the match as China could handle Amanda's barrage of leg attacked end the match in two rounds.

Now Tonya Verbeek wrestled a fantastic tournament! She had a rough start against Russia, pushing the Russian wrestler to a thrid round. Tonya won the match in the last 10 seconds with a leg attack, she not only won the match but I'm pretty she gave coach Calder an anurism. He is recovering fine, no need to send flowers. Tonya went on to beat Mongolia, Azerbaijan & Ukraine on her road to the finals to meet arch rival Yoshida of Japan. The match start as deja vu from previous match between the two vetran wrestlers with Yoshida taking control of the first round with numerous leg attacks which seemed virtually unstoppable. The second round seemed more of the same with Yoshida taking a 2 - 0 lead. However, with 10 seconds in left in the round Yoshida attempt another leg attack but this time Tonya defended and scrambling and ultimatel thowing Yoshida with a crotch lift for 2 points winning the round. The crowd errupted and we difinatey had the Turkist home crowd advantage. This may be the first time Yoshida has been in a 3rd round winner takes all situation in years. When the 3rd round started things were definately different. Yoshida pace was slower and more causious, she attempted a couple of leg attacks that had been successful in the first two rounds, Tonya would have none of that as she defended both times. However a phantom point was put on the board as the refs gave Yoshida a point for one of her failed leg attacks. Then history was made as seconds later the ref gave Yoshida another point and giving Tonya a causion for not wrestling. This was unbelievable as I have never seem in call made in a final match before. Especially since Yoshida was the one avoiding wrestling as she was up 1 -0. Nonetheless, the drama continued, Yoshida attempted another leg attack and Tonya did a tremendous job defending and poping Icho to her back by facing her opponet and knocking her off balance making the scoe 2 - 2, or at least we thought. The judge gave no points even though Yoshida was flat her back. Coach Calder threw in the protest cube to a review of the action, and the call was over turned thus making the score 2-2 with 3 seconds on the clock, however because Yoshida received a Caution point Tonya needed to score a 3rd point to win the round. Unfortunately, Tonya lost the match, but there was not a soul in the arena that agreed with the outcome. I never like to talk about whether someone was riped off or not as I believe you created the situation you are in other words create you destiny but this was a complete rip-off and in my books Tonya won that match. However, this part of sport and true champions make no excuses and learn from every loss no matter how it occurs. In essence this is a great psychologoical victory for Tonya as she has made a tremendous breakthrough with this opponent.

Anyways, it is getting very late and tomorrow is another day. This blogging stuffis not easy.

One more day for our women, and our men start tomorrow.

Wish us luck,

Paul

Another restless night, waiting for action on day two (Important correction)

2011-09-14T19:48:00.000-07:00

Cant sleep again with the anticipation of the day. I reread my blog which I wrote last night and i was mortified to see one comment I put.

Under Justine Bouchard I accidently put I was "not confident" when I meant to put her physical style and conditioning lets me be VERY confident in her ability to make it through the days challenges. I appoligize to all her loved ones who probably wanted to beat me! That is the problem with writing after a full day and no proff reader!!!!

The blog has been getting many hits and it is really great to see how much support wrestling has back home! I hope the wrestling community feels tremendous pride in the accomplishments of our great teams. There are many many hours that lead to these excitement filled days!

Anyways, I am going to try and catch a couple more hours of sleep but may have to settle for watching some video. Im pretty wired as usual!

All for now,

Coach Vierling

Jessie MacDonald reaches the podium on Day 1 of Women's action

2011-09-14T14:09:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Some of you may have been following our teams progress through the day back home on the Tournament weblink. What can I say... it was a decent start to the Worlds. Both Jessie and Carol reached the medal rounds. Yet, to be honest I had to go for a bit of a walk tonight to help regroup and refocus following the days action. Bottom line is I am always proud of our team when they compete. Putting yourself on the line at the worlds is not an easy feet, yet I know both athletes have the ability to beat anyone in that tournament today. Jessie MacDonald won her bronze medal match versus Japan! Carol Huynh just missed the podium, but she did qualify 48kg weight class for London (which 34 athletes at her weight failed to do).

Canada was one of three countries with athletes in both medal matches on the women's side (Azerbijian and Japan also did). I was hoping Carol could/would join Jessie on the podium this evening but as it turned out the match was just a bit too tight against the Chinese athete. (Two clinches were needed and unfortunately China got the offensive position both times). That was enough to make the difference today. In fact against Japan and China Carol found herself in three clinches and the ball draw ended up favoring her opponent everytime. But then there is no way to practice how to win a ball draw, which is why we need to create action in our matches and take that random chance out of the equation. The winners here today, did a great job of taking committed attacks and created dangerous counter attacks on defense. It is hard to be critical to these girls, that have poured their hearts into this sport, I know they want to be great.

If this was a baseball game I would say they led off our line up with some nice hits (reaching the medal rounds)... I hope the rest of our girls can keep this rally going and all seven can be in medal matches. I also hope that we can put a few outta the ballpark!!!

After my walk tonight I got back to my room and started watching video of tomorrows opponents (as did some of our other coaches. I swear this tournament take a year off of my life everytime I attend!) Last night I was up until 2 am...

We are ready and keen for tomorrow!!!

Okay at 55kg Tonya starts off the day with Gurova of Russia. I believe this is a good match up for Tonya. Gurova is a fairly solid youngster, yet lacks the tactical experience to deal with someone like Tonya (in my opinon). Next match will likely be versus Mongolia (another relative newcomer for Verbeek). With 41 athletes in the weight Tonya ened up on the side with 16 athletes. There are some solid wrestlers on her side (Rou, Lat, Ukr, and Aze are all tough). I believe Tonya is the athlete to beat here on her side on the bracket...

At 59kg, Amanda Gerhart is excited to compete at her first Senior world Championships. She has the Brazilian athlete to start off the day. Amanda will look to get her offense going early as she usually does. I am excited to see what she can make happen tomorrow. Her second match tomorrow would be against Vasilenko of the Ukraine. Vasilenko is a fairly physical girl who really relys on a solid front head lock to score most of her points. Amanda will need to make the adjustments to deal with her clamping style. There are 21 girls at 59kg.

At 63 Justine Bouchard is likely in for the longest day of wrestling (with 45 athletes in the weight). Justine drew into the bottom part of the bracket. It should be exciting facing home country Turkish athlete in her first match. The turkish fans have been great (and loud) for the past couple days. It will take no less than 6 victories for Justine to win the weight tomorrow. Yet with her physical fitness and style of wrestling I am not confident that Justine is tough enough to step up to the challenge at hand. She has many tough athetes on her side of the bracket and will need to take things one match at a time.

It is now 1:15 in the morning here. I am excited about the day ahead tomorrow. I hope I can get a few more hours of sleep tonight than I did last night. I want to thank all of those sending there support from Canada. I really believe our team is so worth supporting!!!

Hope everyone is pumped for tomorrow!

Congradulations to our girls again today!

Go Canada!!!

Coach Vierling

Huynh and MacDonald ready for action

2011-09-13T14:03:00.000-07:00

As everyone who is following this knows, our first two girls weighed in tonight and are ready for action tomorrow. The tournament starts at 12:30 pm (turkish time) originally scheduled for 2pm, howevr the numbers in the weight classes have been so large they decided to go with an earlier start. Even with the earlier start the first night's wrestling went past 11 pm! 66 kg in greco had 52 wrestlers! They held the open ceremonies the first night which pushed everything later by almost two hours. I am hoping they have smoothed out the glitches by day three when we compete and everything will run well. We went over to the tournement today to really check out the venue and see how things were running. There are some real good things and some challenges to this years set up...

The warm up area is in an open air tent out side of the arena. Four mats in almost sauna like conditions. The sun beats down on the tent and causes extreme heat and muggy conditions. We will have to be careful tomorrow as the girls warm up, we really want people to feel good and the conditions are not what we are used to. The arena itself had alot of great energy today, the turkish fans are fantastic. There are a large number of team cubicles inside the stadium, and many of the greco nations have taken control of these. It may be a fight tomorrow to get a couple of our own!!! Team Turkey has their own room with a mat in it. I asked Tamara to get to the stadium at 10 am to claim our space. Russia, USA, Japan had already claimed multiple rooms for their group. The athlete seating area is crazy busy, getting up into the stands and back down is really tough to do, especially with hot coffee in hand. So when we scout matches we will likely need to watch them on the tv's down stairs and not venture into the stands. The lunch that was served at the venue for athletes and coaches was the most dissapointing thing I saw today... there was bread, water and very little food, not what you would expect for a world championships. Our athletes and support staff will be ready to deal with any issues that arrise tomorrow. Bottom line there are no excuses when it comes to our World Team's perfromance...every team has to deal with the challenges that they are faced with!

Carol and Jessie recieved their respective draws for tomorrow. Carol drew the athlete from France first match. Boureyem is a two time world medalist silver and bronze (both at 51kg). I believe she is a tough yet good first match for Carol to start the tournament. She rarely ties up and creates alot of movement which will be good for Carol. I hate to look ahead too much, yet I believe it is likely Carol will face Mongolia in a second match. She defeated the Mongolian girl last year in three rounds (but it was not her best match). On her side of the draw is also Japan and China whom likely pose the toughest challenge. Carol has 40 athletes in her weight class tomorrow! This is the largest women's weight class (so far) at any World championships!

Jessie starts off the tournament wrestling the Spainish athlete tomorrow. I believe she will also be a good first match for Jessie. She will have a hard time dealing with MacDonald's physical strength, and will try and keep things as close as possible, yet does not have dangerous weapons to challenge Jessie. Her second match will likely be the Russian, Rakmanova. She was a bronze medalist at last years world championships. Rakmanova is fairly tough to score on, yet I believe Jessie is more than up for the challenge. She has had an excellent season and talking to her tonight she seemed totally focussed on the task at hand. Like Carol, Jessie also has China and Japan as major challenges on her side of the draw.

For both Jessie and Carol I hope they will approach each match with intensity tomorrow. I believe they can both have a great day!!! I have seen them compete a great deal this season, and have looked great in their last few months of preparation for this tournament. They are ready to compete well against anyone who steps onto the mat to face them.

Please tune into the matches on the tournament website...

Excited for tomorrow!!!

Go Canada!!!

Coach Vierling

Day 2 Istanbul: Experiencing Istanbul

2011-09-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

Well we made it through another day here in Turkey, relatively unscathed. Since the competition swings into action (at least with our first weigh ins), today offered a little chance to get out and see Istanbul. So the majority of us did just that, we capitalized on the fantastic weather and this intriguing city. A group of our support staff headed out at 8 am to tackle many of the sights and sounds of Istanbul. They had a full day which included a trip to a palace, a harem, and boat cruise up the Bosphorus straight. Not everyone knows this but the Bosphorus separates the city of Istanbul geographically into two continents, Europe and Asia. It is an extremely nice way to see the city.

We didn't want our athletes to undertake such a busy day in the heat, so I waited (and waited, and waited) for them to arise this morning and get ready. We took a crazy cab ride down to the Istanbul's famous "Grand Bazaar" downtown. I set a two hour maximum and we set out into the maze of tunnels, shops and vendors. Our girls (Carol, Tonya, Amanda, Justine) loved the whole experience. It wasn't too hot in the Bazaar and our ladies did what some of them do well...Shop! Actually I think if we were here for the World Championships of Bartering I would give Amanda Gerhart a good chance at medalling! It was a nice afternoon and diversion for our girls. I don't want them to spend too much energy on such outings, but the smiles on there faces lets me know it was a worthwhile experience.

We hit the mats today just after 5pm. Marty Calder joined our staff and Jeff Adamson got in, in time for our workout. Thanks to Jeff my neck is now in a knot as I write this, and Marty had a 15 minute "grudge match" with Raj Virdi... It was a lot of fun...
Oh Ya... Our Women, they wrestled too! Carol and Jessie took the evening off of the mats and started the tough road to scratch weight. Tonya, Amanda, and Justine were back at it, with another good work out. Ohenewa went down to the venue with Coach Mair at 2pm to check out the action at the tournament and get a workout on the warm up mats. The girls followed different structure tonight, with similar volumes. Tonya and Amanda wrestled Paul Ragusa one match tonight. While Justine wrestled Marty Calder some one minute rounds. Each of the athletes did a few drills specific to their needs. It was not a long practice but again the spirits seemed very good and the energy was definitely there. I left practice again tonight thinking we are ready to compete. Nothing needs to change between now and the tournament.

Our hotel is really buzzing with energy now. Many of the European teams arrived today (Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, France, Germany, etc). It is nice to see so many familiar faces. Good friends, old rivals, and all of them in love with this crazy sport of wrestling.

The majority of our men's team and the remainder of our women's team arrives tomorrow. We are still working through some of the logistics of being located into two different hotels, but everyone is working well together. Our therapists were back at work this evening (and I will probably drop in for a quick tune up myself).

I will end things there... For friends and loved ones back home, there are no worries here. We are doing fine and are being well looked after.
Feel free to email me if you have something you would like me to cover in my blog!

Hope everything is great back home...
Go Canada!

Coach Vierling

Istanbul Day 1: Moving in and First Mat Workout

2011-09-11T10:35:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Turkey.

I am pleased to tell everyone that our arrivals (so far) have been fairly smooth (compared to some of my past experiences at World Championships). Although I am not sure what Canada did to Turkey, but our entrance visa's into the country cost 60 US dollars, while the the Americans and all the other countries paid 20! I thought we were fairly well liked as a nation abroad, I guess I was wrong...

We were met promptly to my pleasant surprise by Chris Stefopulos (our fearless team leader) as we cleared customs. He was waiting for us with our hotel room keys and accreditation in hand. A short while later we were in our own bus headed directly to our hotel. We are staying (our women's team) in the Radisson hotel which is directly adjacent to the airport. It is a nice hotel with great facilities: excellent fitness center with sauna's (dry, steam, as well as a traditional Turkish Hamma). The food has been excellent so far. The hotel rooms are fairly nice (typical european sized yet comfortable). The hotel has free wifi, and many nice little places to relax and socialize down in the lobby. Our men's team is staying at the Atakoy Marina hotel. The rooms are a little more spacious yet the hotel is a little older. Not quite as glamorous however there is a waterfront view. We had wanted to try and have our entire team in the same hotel, yet despite our efforts the organizers would not budge. Operating as "Team Canada" will be a little more complicated given the fact that we are split up geographically.

Today we had our first training session, just after 2 o'clock in the afternoon. As we arrived a little late last night we didn't worry about wake up times this morning. The first night we want our team to get as much sleep as they can. With the excitement through the rest of the week it may actually be one of the best sleeps we might get. The competition start time is actually 2 pm. Which is very interesting compared to most of the tournaments we compete in. The late start time gives our athletes a little more breathing time in the mornings and a little more recovery time after making weight.

The practice this afternoon was one of the best first practices I have watched our girls have. (Carol, Jessie, Tonya, Amanda, and Justine) were on the mats. Our girls stepped onto the mat with outstanding focus today. My expectations of the first workout is usually a little lower. Yet to my pleasant surprise timing and tempo of practice was excellent and our girls (in general) were in excellent spirits. The actual session was 30 minutes of technique and drilling, followed by 5 x 1 minute matches. Paul Ragusa was our sixth athlete on the Mat today. The mats were pretty crazy busy with many of the Greco teams training at the same time. We were only able to spar one group of two wrestling at a time. It is always a coach's fear to have one of our athletes run over by some heavyweight wrestler. So we are very careful to ensure our girls were watched as they wrestled. I walk around the mat like a nightclub doorman blocking anyone who comes into our area. The person who actually deserves the MVP for his efforts today is Ragusa. He stepped off of the mat today and his face was like hamburger from our "loving girls". Actually I used Paul a great amount with the girls today. He wrestled all five of our girls multiple times.

Went we got back to our hotel our medical support staff leapt to action! We have such a great support team in Canadian Wrestling on our trips and tours our athletes get treated so well. Tonight was an example of this. Rick Tkach, Surinder Budwal, Jessica Pawlik, and Mike Nicholls all worked diligently to help our athletes recover and feel great heading into the competition. I can tell that our team is different than most... honestly I believe there is a chemistry and a camaraderie that our group shares that is truly special! We spent over an hour tonight in Rick's room as he treated athletes, there was ELEVEN of us in there!!! In one hotel room! People were chatting, laughing, and teasing each other.... I sat back with a smile on my face the whole time. My job is supposed to be stressful, right, I mean we are at the world championships! What a great team to be a part of (and we are a real team)!

Anyways, even as I was doing this blog tonight I am sitting a room with our staff. Hard to focus, but I'm laughing lots... It has been so slow writing this because I can't think straight with these guys...! I am going to let Tamara proof read this now, so if this doesn't make sense please don't blame me...

We are in great spirits, stay tuned!!!

Coach Vierling

Transforming into TNT!

2011-09-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

Well the last week has been quite quiet in terms of action.

We have shifted the focus of alot of the training sessions. Many of our training sessions throughout the summer have varied from an hour and a half to two hours in duration. As we hit the final week and a half prior to the worlds these volumes are cut by approximately half. The athletes will still have times during practice where they are reaching a lactic threshold but the goal is to not have large accumulations of fatigue. Recovery time betweens scrimmage (or intense drilling) bouts is increased. The goal is to have the wrestling be high quality execution (sharp and clean). Paradoxically alot of the times the athletes look forward to this "taper period" as the progress through the tough build up to the World championships. Yet when we begin to taper, the athletes often get a little restless, with the decreased volume. They are use to working very hard and have created an expectation mentally and physically for this. As the World Championships come into sight the athletes are forced into a mode of acceptance of their physical level of preparation (whether perfect or not), running through a wall in the last week leading into the worlds not will serve a purpose. Often times a great amount of that final week is spent mentally preparing and thinking about the event. Athletes reaffirm they are ready and will "put it all out, on the mat" on their day at the worlds!

One of the speeches I listened to this past year was Marcel Lacroix a National Speedskating coach for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. His speech was filled with highs and lows of Olympic success and failure, it was really great. One of the most interesting things they did leading into Vancouver was take their athletes to Las Vegas to watch the Cirque du Soleil performers in daily training. The idea was, they need to be able to perform flawlessly on demand. A loss of focus, or having a bad day, simply means someone is going to get seriously hurt, so it CAN NOT happen. They then went to the show to watch the same performers, execute their stunts infront of a packed theatre. Infact, they were expected to perform flawlessly around a dozen times per week! So asking athletes to have a great (or peak) performance is not asking the impossible. They created an interesting Acronym for there team, TNT! We all know that TNT is the symbol for dynamyte which is powerful, explosive stuff. What it stood for was "Today, not Tomorrow", a reminder that your event is a one day thing, its up to you to execute and make it happen on THAT day. Pretty cool way to think about it.

That is the stage many of our athletes are in... as there bodies begin to really recover from the fog of heavy training they begin to see and feel the possibility of TNT. They think about it alot through the summer months but in this final week they are finally hitting the state where they can believe in the ability to reach the podium!!!

We leave tomorrow, and I for one am really getting excited!!!

On your Marks... Get SET!!!

2011-09-03T14:03:00.000-07:00

Canadian Team Ready for Istanbul.

A week from today team Canada will arrive in Istanbul for this years instalment of the Senior World Championships. It has been a good summer of training and travel for our national team members. Each athlete has faced great challenges along the way and I hope each of them takes to heart the lessons they have learned along the way. As always I am very excited to attend this amazing tournament. Returning to Istanbul is going to be fantastic, it is a truely great backdrop for this years world championships! The city is amazing and the country has a rich history and appreciation for the sport we all love so much. I have looked at the premilinary entries on the Fila website, and if they are any indication it is going to be a huge worlds (in terms of participation).

As I have for the past few years I plan to try and blog leading into and through the event. Providing fans, friends, and family some of the sights, sounds, and happenings at the biggest event of the year. I have been asked once again to try and cover things from a Team Canada perspective. Hitting the podium as always is our teams goal at this years World Championships. Aside from the glory, on the line is the first 6 spots qualifying for the London Olympic Games next summer. I know many Canadians will be watching eagerly back home, pulling for our team to qualify as many spots as possible!

Please feel free to pass this link around, and to email if you have questions you would like covered on here. Next Saturday we hit the ground in Istanbul!

The Tournament Schedule is as follows:

Sept. 12-14 Greco Roman

Sept. 14th Carol Huynh and Jessie MacDonald

Sept. 15th Tonya Verbeek, Amanda Gerhart, and Justine Bouchard

Sept. 16th Martine Dugrenier, Ohenewa Akuffo, and David Tremblay

Sept. 17th John Pineda, Jeff Adamson, and Hetag Pliev

Sept. 18th Haislan Garcia, Matt Gentry, Arjan Bhullar

All for now...

Coach Vierling

Delhi games end with fourteen medals for Canadian Wresting

2010-10-14T16:54:00.000-07:00

As a final Blog on the delhi games I would like to thank all those who followed along and supported from home. I know our athletes appreciate your support.
Our men finished the competition with what I though was a very good showing for wrestling. They competed hard and were very competitive with the best athletes in the tournament. It was a very nice end to the tournament with Arjan Bhullar beating his Indian rival infront of a packed house!

Fourteen medals from wrestling is a significant contrbution to the overall performance of Team Canada at the games. Our entire team put forth a solid effort there and deserve recognition. To the athletes who did not medal this time, I hope the experience was still a great one. I know I will not forget the past two weeks. There are important lessons to take away from delhi and I have no doubt that the athletes who competed there can grow from the experience.

We are two summers out from the Olympic games and simply put, we cant rest on our heels (not for one second). We are at the midpoint in the quadrenial and have the Worlds next summer in Istanbul as the start of London Qualification process.

A special thanks to John Dawson for his work as our team leader at these games.
The months ahead are filled with evaluations, meetings, and Olympic planning. Hopefuly these athletes will get a little rest before diving back into the next season (which has already started).

Bye for now,
Coach Vierling

Day two Women and Day one Freestyle Men

2010-10-08T23:48:00.000-07:00

My appoligies for not getting to post last night...
It was an emotional evening, and by the time I got back to the village I found my gas tank on absolute empty.
Obviously to summarize the our final three ladies performance is hard to do. I love them to death and am always proud of how they carry themselves and individuals. There were some very good moments yesterday (Buydens win over Nigeria really stands out). Yet I dont think any of the three are really satisfied with at least one of their matches in the tournament. Bottom line we walked into a rocking stadium and the Indian Girls capitalized on that momentum. We didnt quite do the little things that has really stood us out as a team. Break down our opponents body positioning, make solid adjustments to counter attacks off of their attacks. Just a few little things but they can make all big difference.
India really did a good job in preparing for this and too their teams credit they are competing with heart and intensity that we have not seen. The national pride behind the event has been wonderful to see. The fans at the stadium have been knowledgable and amazing. They cheer after almost every good scamble and appreciate good wrestling. They have even chanted "Ca-na-da, Ca-na-da" on more than one occasion.
This really was not the focus of our season and I know a lot of our athletes put in a great amount of energy and training to try and peak and perform at the Worlds. The extension of this years season has been a challenge mentally for sure. This has been a very neat experience though, and I hope in the end our whole team remembers and cherishes this whole adventure. I know I will!
At 51kg Jessie Bondy (MacDonald) Lost to India in three rounds, defeated England and South africa in dominant fashion to win the bronze.
At 59kg Tonya beat two opponents i9ncluding the Nigerian. (Before being caught and pinned in the first round by the Indian in the finals)
At 67 kg Megan Buydens defeated current world bronze medalist to open the tournament! a great three round decision that was a true foccussed effort start to finish. She then beat australia handily to reach the finals. In the Gold medal match the indian remanded in a very tight position and megan had difficulty generating offense. her opponent capiatlized in each round as megan came out of position in an attempt to create action. Still it was a good event for Megan and I am glad that she was able to get this opportunity and get this great experience.

Many of our girls left to see the Taj Mahal today set up by the organizing committee on a train, which they were very excited about.
For Coach Calder and I it was back to Work!!! Three men wrestling today and four more weighing in...
This morning was a good effort by our men!
60 kg -Jamie Mancini won two matches this morning against Nigeria, and Scotland and has reached another final (he will face Dutt of India who is a tremendous fan favorite here)
74 kg -Evan Mac had a bye, then beat Australia (The Aussie is an import and had defeated Nigeria), in his semi he lost a hard fought match vs India. He will have two matches now to wrestle back for a bronze. (Starting with Britain).
96 kg -Corey Jarvis ripped both of his opponents this morning enroute to the gold medal match. He teched Pakistan, and pinned Australia in the semis. He will not face india in the finals... Coming into the Competition the Indian media had predicted 7 gold medals in freestyle. Yet the British athlete defeated the Indian to start the tournament at 96kg, he then lost in three rounds to the nigerian. That is who Corey will face in the finals.
I hope the games coverage is good back home... There seem to be lots of media driven stories...
Some of our athletes have had mild symptoms of stomach discomfort (yet nothing major, knock on wood). We are very accustom to travelling and competing in some challenging places so dont worry too much about that stuff. Our team is being well looked after.
For me I am going to try and grab a bite, grab a quick work out, get some lossenges for my diminishing voice! And... oh yah sit by the pool!!!
Wish us luck this evening!

Canadian Girls Golden!

2010-10-07T08:35:00.000-07:00

I must admit I was excited tonight heading to the stadium to compete in the final matches on Day one of the wrestling competition. It was nice to know that the Canadian Media would be there to cover our sport and our girls. Many of the mission staff and other Canadian team members also came to watch the matches. I knew on paper it would be possible to win all three bouts tonight, and as former and current World medalists our girls would be concidered favorites by many. I also told them I was glad each of them had a tough match ahead of themselves... an opportunity to test themselves and execute against some game competitors.
What a fun session it was tonight, if you have not seen the matches goto cbc.ca! They are all on a video stream for the watching. In many ways it was not the best our girls have ever wrestled, but that is in part to the heart and fighting spirit of the athletes we faced. At 48kg I had anticipated a fairly passive and tactical approach by the Indian Wrestler in facing an experienced and dynamic wrestler like Carol. Carol has wrestled her before and really controlled the match. BUT those matches did not occur in India in front of a very excited Indian crowd! I was surprized when she actually attacked first and took Carol down to her back! Down late into the round (in both rounds) Carol showed the composure and grit of a true champion. With explosive three point attacks to win in come from behind dramatic fashion! Im not gonna lie, sometimes it great to be a coach! Not only do I get the best seat in the house for the final matches at the Commonwealth games, but I get to see our wrestlers show how special they really are! You always tell your athletes to keep wrestling until that last whistle blows, and sometimes great things happen when they do!

Justine faced similar adversity in her match... The Nigerian girl came out very physically and took the first round scoring off of justines attack. Many athletes would have freezed up, or paniced, but again Justine showed why our team is so highly regarded. She refocussed and went back on the attack in the second round. She then closed out the match with another mentally tough third round. Both wrestlers were working very hard and are very physical. It is nice to see Justine out gun such a solid athlete! In the end of the match she demonstrated solid offense to scoring, defense to scoring, and ground wrestling to scoring. What more can a coach asked for. She pushed each opportunity and eventually found a way to capitalize and win!
Our final match was Ohenewa vs the Cameroon athlete which again ended up being a bit of a war of wills. In the first round ohenewa found a way to take over a solid single leg attack in the dying seconds of the round, she scored with mere seconds left with a body lock. In the second round the Cameroon athlete answered back catching Akuffo on her back off of a front head and arm attempt. It looked grim for a few seconds but Ohenewa managed to eventually work her way out of a very sticky position and live to wrestle a little more. The third round held a lot of solid hand fighting and motion but neither athlete could secure a real attack position. So it came down to a clinch for the win at the end of the day. Ohenewa got the offense position and made no mistake!

THREE TIMES, the Canadian anthem played tonight at the wrestling venue. And I got to see our girls smile so bright up ontop of the podium for Canada.
In many ways it seemed like the chips were down for our girls ... Carol was loosing late, Justine lost the first round, Ohenewa the second round and was on her back! The adversity made it much sweeter, and I hope reaffirmed the confidence they have all worked so hard to build up.

Tomorrow we return to the mats at 51kg with Jessie, 59kg with Tonya, and 67kg with Megan. Two of the three have drawn very tough opponents right off the bat, possibly athletes you would expect to meet in the finals. If they learned anything today it is that no matter what, our team can find a way if you stay after it. I am a little exhausted right now and need to recharge from the emotional night.
Congratulations to our team tonight, going three for three was really nice. They are stars for an evening! Tomorrow we start the journey all over again! Also congratulations to all who have supported our team (family, friends, training partners) we do feel you behind us... even though we may be on the otherside of the globe!
Good night for now...
Coach Vierling

Morning session concludes with Huynh, Bouchard, and Akuffo making the finals!

2010-10-07T00:09:00.000-07:00

The team in general did a good job today to start the women's competition. As my headline indicates three of our girls went undefeated and will wrestle for Commonwealth Gold tonight. This is gonna sound completely spoiled on my part, so bare with me... It was extremely hard watching Jill Gallays lose in three tough rounds to a very physical Nigerian wrestlers. One of those "man if we could only do that one over" moments. Jill Took the Nigerian down and turned her to win the first round, and from the point forward the Nigeria went on defense almost 100%... The second round ended 0-0 and the nigerian was awarded the clinch and scored. Jill tried to press the action in the third round not wanting to take the chance on another random ball draw. Unfortunately the clamping Nigerian managed to counter an spin behind for a split second and was awarded the point. Jill knowing she needed to wrestle off the bottom stood up and got pushed off from behind for a second point. Jill got a little frustrated from the outset as the Nigerian mostly clamped or blocked out her offensive attempts. The hard part is the way the draw went the indian, nigerian and Jill were all on the same side (the strongest three by far). The nigerian lost her next match vs India (in it she won the first round, and had a standing single on the indian in the zone and failed to score, to win the match)! Jill feels devistated to be elliminated from the tournament! Being a part of our national team brings with it a strong expectation for success. I want to say this, she has a huge amount of potential and I never want any of our team members to be broken by any one defeat. I hope this is a growing moment for her. She did not wrestle poorly at all! Meerly she was unable to break through on a very solid athletic opponent. I suspect this maybe a tactic we will face again tonight in the finals. Everyone of our athletes have faced moments like this in the past year, and in the end responded to become better. Jill will be no different. I know the team feels for her, is proud of her, and knows she has lots more wrestling ahead of her.

Carol, justine, and ohenewa all wrestled like the veterans they are in the morning session. Carol had a really long and awkward nigerian in her opener and kept things clean, and even managed to work on a few technical things we have been trying to improve. Her next match short and sweet and intended to send a clear message asto her readiness vs the indian for tonights final.
Justine hit an explosive double leg in both of her opening matches this morning and that is all it took. She never allowed either of her opponents to get a second chance once she was on their legs! angain this is something we have been trying to emphasize so it is great to see her put the nails in the coffin (so to speak) and pin her opponents in the first round. Tonight she is wrestling a Nigerian athlete (actually much like herself) physical and agressive. I am really looking forward to this match up as it should produce some entertaining scrambles.
Ohenewa also has a very gifted opponent tonight in the Cameroon wrestler (I know what you are thinking... that Cameroon should be an easy match, but she has had a great amount of international success and was in the beijing olympic games). It will be another chance for ohenewa to get into a good match and show off her explosive attacks which have been very impressive so far today.
I am looking forward to all three matches being tough and good tests for our girls! CBC was there at the venue this morning and will be on hand at the finals tonight (as well as a number of Canadian team supports and staff). It should be fun! I hope you get to see it first hand back home.

We are going to chill for a bit this afternoon, and then I will take a bus over with the athletes back to the venue (Jessie, Tonya, and Megan are ready to weigh in). After the weigh in we will do our best to get that Canadian Athem playing on the speakers at the Arena!!! ;)
Wish us luck...
Thanks for checkin in...
Coach Vierling

Good Day on the mats, Olympic Weights set to compete

2010-10-06T08:04:00.000-07:00

Well it was a good day for a couple of our lads on the mats. Jack Bond took a silver medal in the 66kg weight class (2 W, 1 L), while Promise Mwanga (3 W, 1L) took home a bronze in the 55kg class. Both men wrestled hard and I hope took great pride and pleasure in their Commonwealth Games experience. Congrats to them...

Four of our ladies weighed in this afternoon and now are set to compete tomorrow morning.
At 48kg I assume Carol Huynh will likely garner some CBC coverage for those keen enough to watch back home. Carol will start the tournament with a very lanky Nigerian athlete with Former Olympic gold medalist Daniel Igali in the opposing corner. Carol has looked good in the preparations heading into the Games and has proven a "Games Pro" with Gold medals at the FISU Games, the Pan American Games, and the Olympic Games already on her resume.
At 55kg it is Jillian Gallays (our newest member of our Senior A team) will have a tough morning with two strong vetrans in Edwards of Nigeria (formerly Odohi), and Geeta of India both on her side of the draw. This is precisely the challenge I am excited to see Jill face. The indian press has stated Geeta is a favorite in the weight, and are hoping their women wrestlers can feed off of the success the Greco men started this week. Jill will have to wrestle a smart couple of matches in the morning a task I know she is ready for.
At 63kg Justine Bouchard dominated the Commonwealth Championships in December here in India, yet it was a differengt Indian athlete she wreslted in the final. She definately looks strong entering the tournament and may have a couple of matches that I believe she can use to build momentum prior to facing a solid challenger in the Finals. She will need to be agressive and pursue her opponents the way she did here in December.
Finally at 72kg, Ohenewa Akuffo has come off of her best world championships to date. She has a less experienced opponent in her first match vs Australia, from there it will be the winner of Nigeria and India. On the otherside of draw is the Cameroon athlete who has competed very well over the last two years. She looked strong at the worlds this year and won the Championships tournament we attended in December (Yet akuffo was not in that tournament.

All in all I am glad that all our athletes will face some tough opponents tomorrow. We are likely going to run into Nigeria and india a number of times in the morning, and on paper pose the biggest threat. We want to execute the same no matter who we wrestle though, and not take any opponent lightly. After the success in Beijing there definately is an air of anticipation around Our part of Team Canada (media, support staff, athletes). Our girls in our program have worked extremely hard and are deserving of the respect they have created in and outside of the wrestling community.

Wish us luck!!!
Coach Vierling

Wrestling underway in Dehli

2010-10-05T17:01:00.000-07:00

Well it was the Women's first full day in Delhi yesterday. We took a nice break from the mats, and explored our new home for the next week, the Commonwealth Village. I must admit I was more than a little curious to see first hand what the set up would be like here, and if indeed all the bad press is/was warranted. Team Canada is situated in two large building towards the back side of the village, at first I was worried to hear that, as the main dining hall, transportation complex, training venues, and international zone are at the front entrance. To my pleasant surprise it is a straight 5 minute walk down the middle walk way in the village. It is not near as large or spread out as the villages in Athens or Beijing. It feels very comparable to what we have experienced in Rio, Santo Domingo, and even Winnipeg for the Pan Am Games. Thus far I have been very inpressed with the volunteers, and the experience in general. People have been at times a little slow to respond, and at times very disorganized (I couldn't help but laugh at least a few times at the wrestling venue yesterday). In general the demeanor of the staff and volunteers has been pleasant and courteous.

Okay, I am sure you wanna here a bit about this highly publicized village. As I said Team Canada is in building 17 & 18. Building 17 has been transfomed in to our main opperations hub. The second floor has a medical clinic where a core group of practitioners from doctors, to physios, to Massage therapists call home. Surinder Budwal who works extensively with our Wrestling program is part of the staff their. He has been working shifts in the clinic, but now that wrestling has started we have scooped him back with our team. We also have Rick Tkach who worked with us for almost a decade now. Rick came to Abu Dabhi as a massage therapist for our team. He is also set up in our Apartment doing massage and treatments to ensure athletes are recovered and fresh going into the competition. Also in building 17 in an atletes lounge, a coaches lounge, communication and support staff centre hub, a recovery area with Hot tub (inflatable), and last but not least our team Canada Clothing centre. All our girls went and picked up the remaining "HBC gear" that we had not yet received prior to arriving in Delhi. We need to look good, competing, training, and yes of course hopfully on the podium.

We are situated as a team in building 18 on the third floor of our building. The condo's have five bedrooms and a number of washrooms in each. They have now been cleaned adequately, yet I wouldn't say they sparkle by any stretch, however not too bad (we have been in many places in our travels, Canada has a comfort standard that few countries can match). Yesterday I spoke to one of the heads of OTP, and a good friend, he said his first five days here were spent cleaning out bathrooms all day long. So thanks so much to all those Canadian Support staff who went over and above the call of duty to ensure that our rooms are clean! Each condo has a little kitchen and a living area with tv and a couple couches. Not bad at all, and again fairly typical asto what we are used to and expect. Surinder said all of the apartments in the Village have been pre sold following the games and the units are drawing a pretty penny, by Indian standards.

As for the village in general. The main food hall is large (quite good), again fairly standard there are food stands with indian food, pasta, african food, and asian food, as well as the good old "western food" area. I ate breakfast in the main dining centre yesterday. Lunch and dinner were at the smaller "casual dinning centre" literally a stones throw from our building. There is and outside patio next to a pool (no swimmers), which has been really nice to enjoy. It is hot here, yet I think Abu Dhabi was hotter and helped toughen us up to be ready for the heat. The selection in the casual dining centre is much more limited when compared to the main centre, yet both meals were excellent. I must admit my good friend in Calgary has developed a real love of indian food for myself, and I have had two delicious indian meals yesterday.

The international zone is quite nice with a large outdoor stage, with entertainment in the evenings. It is essentially a small town with all the necessities. Bank, general store, sovenier stores, hair dresser, post office, disco, small pub (closes at 11pm), etc... I went down to the international zone with our med staff and Donny Ryan last night to celebrate Eric's Bronze medal at 96kg in Greco for about an hour. It was nice, lots of support staff for many countries mingeling and relaxing after their busy days. Next to the International zone is a really great training complex. it has an outdoor track stadium, gynsasiaum, a wrestling area with four international sized mats, a large fitness facility, a large ourdoor poor (shaded with a cool tarped structure) one pool for leisure, one pool for training! This part of the village is as good or better than most of the other vilages I have been to. I went for a workout last night as I kept an eye on our four girls who will be weighing in today. Carol, Jill, Justine, and Ohenewa weigh in today at 4pm.

I went over to the evenings Greco session to watch Eric compete in his repachage and Bronze medal match. I thought he had a good tournament and competed hard. The drive over to the competition site was quite painless, about 15-20minutes. As with Beijing they have created special lanes for all the games transportation vehicles, we also had a police escort. This kept things moving nicely. Without these... (I kinda shutter to think how bad it could be). The evening setting had no shortage of drama. Eric was ultimately penalized in the second and deciding round with a caution and point against the South African athlete to decide the bronze medal. They were wrestling hard and banged heads a few times, Eric in this instance ended up being penalized for the contact. In the final match at 96kg the Indian and Austrailian athlete had a real slug fest! The Austrailian (a former Egytian wrestler) was kicked out of the match after he made a gester to the cheering indian fans. Sport can be interesting sometimes to say the least, his removal ended up not only being from the match, but also the tournament. So in the end, Eric got to put on his Team Canada Podium gear afterall. A reward for a days hard work. The Indian team dominated the day, and appear to have started off the wrestling tournament the way they wanted. With three of three gold medals. I read an article yesterday about how hard the indians have prepared and emphasized the games at home in Delhi. They are hoping to secure a large amount of medals. I am hoping to spoil there plans (at least) for the top of the podium.

Okay I have rambled on quite a while... I woke up at 4 am and was wired. I walked next door to our building and got on the computers in the residence centre here. Today Jack and Promise compete in Greco, I will go over to help Don Ryan as needed. Wish them luck....

I am also excited for our women to tip the scales today and get ready for tomorrows action...
My appoligies if my Blog is a little confusing at times, and appears to be one big run on sentence. Its a skill i learned from Mike Jones. ha ha
By for now from Dehli...

Coach Vierling

Team Canada Final preparations for the Commonwealth Games in Abu Dhabi!

2010-10-03T12:57:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the Middle East! Members of our mens and womens team arrived in Abu Dhabi on Friday October 1st. It has been a wonderful experience so far, and our athletes are in great spirits as we prepare to depart for for Delhi for our Commenwealth Games Competition.

I really would like to thanks former Canadian Wrestlers (MacMaster Alumni) Ryan Sargeant and Calum MacNeil for all the work they have done in bringing us to, and hosting our team in Abu Dhabi. We have been treated very well from the moment we touched down at the airport.

Our staging here in Abu Dhabi has been part of our strategic planning for the Commonwealth Games. We are staying at a nice hotel with outstanding food (Novotel). We have been training in a world class facility here, the main floor have mats set up for judo, ju jitsu, and wrestling. I am told that ju jitsu has just been made part of the school curriculum here and this center is a hot bed for training. Our team has been welcomed by the federation as they really would like to build strong relationships in wrestling as well. Given all of the struggles that we recently saw in the media about the games i think it was a great choice to come here. To get close to the indian time zone, and get ready for the heat we will face. In December we travelled to the Commonwealth Championships in India, and based on that trip, I wrote a short proposal to Own The Podium asking for their support in our pre-games staging plans. It has also been a big mental challenge for our athletes who recently attended the World Championships in Russia. To get right back into training so close to the conclusion of the Worlds is not easy... they have done a great job though. Coming here, I hope, was a nice little reward in terms of an interesting destination in a part of the world we would not typically get to see. All in all our short camp has been almost perfect.

On Saturday morning we had a good mat session followed by evening weight control/cardio. Through the middle part of the day, the federation provided a minibus which took us to Dubai for a little shopping excursion. We got to see the tallest building in the world and what i would say is one of the most impressive sights I have every seen. The skyline of Dubai ,growing huge amounts by the day. I am not sure if this is accurate, but Calum had said that Dubai was currently home to 15% of all the cranes in the entire world!!! I seems as though hundreds on skyscrappers are under construction at the same time, and so many of them look very lavish and impressive! I had thought that the world was in a global recession but here, the evening stars are obscured by the amount of construction dust hovering in the atmosphere. We drove past a mall that had a man made sky hill in it! At the mall we went to there was a hockey rink (Ryan says hey are going to start a professional league here), and an aqaurium/underwater zoo. Very impressive!!! I actually didnt even walk into a store...

This morning we had another (little more) intense practice, as the athletes started to feel a bit more recovered from our long travels here. This evening we went on a Desert Safari! This included 4x4 driving thought the sand dunes, stopping at a camel farm, Stopping to watch the sunset in the desert from atop a high dunes (amazing), getting to ride a camel, and finished off with a desert buffet in a fort. There was a belly dancer for our entertainment. Some tourists got to go quading, while others went boarding down the sand dune! (Not our games athletes though) Oh yah, Chris Prickett, Carol Huynh, and Tonya Verbeek all got pulled up to dance too. What a great team building experience!

All in all I am extremely happy with how things have turned out thus far. Our ladies team departs tommorow night for Delhi, and our Guys depart the following day. Tomorrow we will have one more mat session followed by a bit more 'low key' day. Our girls (and guys) are looking forward to the experience ahead, and to getting on the mats and competing tough for Canada!

I heard the games opening was great... for those unaware. the competition schedule is as follows:

October 5th and 6th Greco (3 athletes)

7th and 8th Women (7 athletes)

9th and 10th Freestyle Men (7 athletes)

Hope all is well back in Canada, and many are ready to tune in!

Coach Vierling

p.s. oh yah, did i mention it is hot here!!! ;)

Final wrap up on the Worlds, On to the Commonwealth Games

2010-09-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

Well I have made it back home and had an evening to sleep in my own bed and a long day of travel to reflect on the whole tournament.

I guess the first thing I would like to do is congratulate the Men's team and all those involved in that program for there performance in Russia. They competed with intensity and are truely making progress on the international scene. It is not easy, look at the fact that the USA Men's team were unable to breakthrough. The goal is London in 2012 and beyond that into Rio in 2016, and our Men are definately pushing hard. The breakthroughs are on our doorstep. I know there are alot of critics (or cynics) but you gotta keep the faith.

This little blog had nearly 1700 hits during the Worlds this year. Which goes to show that there are a number of people out there who care about our National Teams. Thanks to those who followed...

It is a short turn around for our teams and we are off to the Commonwealth Games next month in India. I intend to Blog there as well. It will be a much different event than the Worlds in Moscow, yet will be truely special and interesting to say the least.

In early October our teams will be departing for Abu Dhabi to acclimate for a few days prior to heading into Dehli for the Games. Are competition there should be a fun one against the rest of the Commonwealth Nations. While I know our team will be the one to beat in india we need to make sure we carry the right attitude into the games as each weight has good athletes that will be participating. CBC will be broadcasting the action (I am not sure how much wrestling will be on the schedule, yet they are contacting us quite regularily about our team).

I/we also need to spend a good portion of this next month truely evaluating and planning the next two years forward heading into London. We meet face to face with Own The Podium to pitch them on our needs for support (these are measured against all the other sports). We have done a lot of good things over the past season, we need to maintain these, and need improve upon the areas that need focus.

Coming home off of the Worlds it ALWAYS feels like your emotional reserve is empty, but this year it feels like there is no time to relax and recover for me. I have a National Sport leadership conference, Olympic Planning Conference, Own The Podium midquad review, The Commonwealth Games, and the Fisu World Championships all in the next 2 months.

Anyways, Thanks for supporting Canadian Wrestling! If you know someone on the World Team please congratulate and celebrate their performances with them. Being the best needs tonnes of support! I encourage you to get others to follow our great team!

Bye for now...
Coach Vierling

Women's Worlds concludes with two great performances

2010-09-10T11:13:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Martine and Ohenewa today for outstanding performances. They both wrestled solid tournaments and really ended this years Worlds with a bang. Martine won the Gold medal again this year with four straight wins, while Ohenewa went 4-1 losing a hard fought final. This entry will be brief as we are taking a team photo in 10 minutes...

Our team ended the competition in third place narrowly behind host Russia, and Japan had a great rebound from their team loss to Azerbijian last year, Winning with a very impressive three days of wrestling. I once again this year got to stand on the medal podium (in Russia) thanks to the efforts of my/our wonderful team. Yet why was I still not truely satisfied...? Why does it still hurt a bit...?

Being a coach in wrestling has been one of the VERY MOST rewarding things I could ever imagine doing! Sharing in peoples goals, dreams, trying to assist in their journey... yet that whole process is why this is the worst job too. I stand on the podium at times and wish I could trade places with the ones who never made it (this year)... Dont get me wrong, I am so proud to represent Canadian Wrestling up there! Yet I cant help but think about how ALL the members of my team have beaten people on the podium in this tournament in the last year or two. And how they all deserve to feel that satisfaction at the end of the process, of a medal around their neck! I/we ask alot of them, and they deliver a lot in return. I guess I just want them all to know their efforts are appreciated!

Anyways, gotta run!!!
I will give more details later..

Coach V

Tough day on the mats!

2010-09-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

For those of you checking the results back home I am sure it has been a bit of a disheartening day. It has been a real tough day at the office over here, in no uncertain terms. We all know that we have a great team. Today had some very strong moments, yet somehow we sat back just a little more than last year, and maybe didnt quite carry the action to our opponents the way we have (or can). Some of the countries are clearly wrestling very defensive tactictal in their approach. Yet I believe the best countries and athletes here are making things happen. Putting pressure on their opponents that leads to a scoring opportunity (either offensively or defensively).

The margin of victory or defeat is so narrow at times. Being so close makes it even more painful to fall short. I am proud of our team, as always. I will allow myself to feel bad tonight (for them) because I know how much heart they have invested. Yet I know that no one escapes high level sport with out heartache. It unfortunately is part of the process in striving to be your best, and the best...

Everyone of our girls is championship material, and I know missing the podium is very hard on them. Yet I know we can use these experiences to make us better tomorrow, and in the tournaments to come...

Tomorrow...
Martine has Norway first match with Japan as a likely second opponent (a rematch of the 2008 World Final)
Ohenewa has Azerbijian first, and Spain most likely to follow.

It was super hard to start typing this Blog tonight... My mind was a little cluttered and filled with emotion... But im glad I did.
Stay tuned,

Coach V

Cawa Website Article

2010-09-08T22:41:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to the article on the Cawa Website on yesterdays performances.

wrestling.ca/news/article.php?id=1715

Wish us luck today! Leaving for the venue in two hours...

Carol Huynh Wins Bronze at the Worlds!

2010-09-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

Carol went 4 wins and 1 loss (to the eventual gold medalist). She has now won her third World Championships medal and never placed lower than 5th at the World Championships. I will provide details later. At the moment we are watching some video footage of our opponents tomorrow.

Jill Gallays has China first match

Tonya has Mongolia out of the shutes

Justine has a rematch of her Bronze medal final last year Poland first match

Sorry to leave you hanging on details, but I said my job as coach comes before my job as journalist! Congrats to Carol! It is a beautiful thing to see here smiling on the podium once again!!!

Jessie lost a tough match to Kazakstan who went on to wrestle for a bronze medal...

Again I will follow up later, it is almost 11pm here and I am just getting supper...

Go Canada!

Coach Vierling

Up and raring to go

2010-09-07T21:05:00.000-07:00

Well the last few nights have been a bit torcherous for me. I had been having some stomach issues since arriving and had not been able to sleep very well on an old mattress with springs digging into my ribs! Yet last night somehow I managed to secure a decent nights sleep (maybe it was the gravol) and jump outta bed at 6:30 ready to take on the world. Got a couple cups of coffee down for the first time in three days and am now ready to get to business.

We had a good team meeting last night with all of the support staff (again trying to cover off all of those important details, so nothing gets missed). From this point forward the event turns into a bit of a three ring circus. We have athletes competing, others weighing in, and others at various training phases (depending on which day they weigh in). Balancing the energy to deal with it all is a bit of a juggling act to say the least. The three athletes weighing-in today (Jill, Tonya, and Justine), all seem to be in a very good state. Not much weight to loose for weigh-in. While Martine, and Ohenewa will continue to train this morning. I have talked to the girls who are not competing and am trying to ensure they all stay focussed on THEIR preparations and not expend too much energy invested in their friends and teammates competing today. With my team that is not an easy task, Justine told me she would be STAYING at the venue to support and watch (I am sure the others two will likely try and do the same). Again that is why I am really encouraging our team leaders to find us a hotel room near by the venue. So our athletes have a close refuge to rest, when the opportunity presents itself.

The last few days have been quite nice leading into the competition. There are some nice things to see right near our hotel. There is a big park with amusement rides and games near by, a space museum with the history of the Russian space program, and a few little markets. (Yes Des, your sister and your dad are having a nice time)... The hotel has also offered some neat people watching opportunities, I wont go into much details but lets just say it has... as well as having a casino, and a number of other things for entertainment (but I have not heard of anyone getting rich yet). A couple of nights we took a Canadian flag, and some canadian tunes (Blue rodeo, tragically hip, etc) out onto the front patio of the hotel and created our own Canada House with all the support staff and supporters! I think it has been a nice mix thus far of relaxation and focussing on the task at hand.

Last evening Marty and I went through some more matches of opponents, we will likely face. And I will watch some more footage, as soon as I am done this Blog entry. We also have a video camera on site to get footage at the competition should we be faced with an opponent we did not anticipate. From this point forward its a matter of getting in a good stance, and getting after it when the whistle blows (it doesnt matter who you are wrestling) the task stays the same. I have two bags of losenges ready to go for my throat and voice, and a bottle of tylenol for the head ache that is sure to come later! Sounds like a plan for a good day!!!

Wish us luck ;)
Go Canada!!!

Coach Vierling

Carol Huynh and Jessie MacDonalds Draws

2010-09-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
First Weigh-in is done. A quick summary...

48kg (25 participants)
Caro'ls first match Sanchez of Spain Dont want to take4 anyone lightly but I think this is an excellent opening match up for Huynh who would be a strong favorite here. Her next match would be winner of Mongolia and Greece (I think the mongolian is most likely). On her side is Hitomi Sakamoto form Japan, that would be a possible quarter final. On the other side of the draw Zhao of China, meets Oorzak of Russia first match. The winner of that will be a strong favorite to make the Finals. Carol has looked really good this week here and seems focussed and ready to compete.

51kg (20 participants)
Jessie's opener is against Bakatyuk of Kazakstan. Those of you who remember the Olympics this was Carol's semi final match there. She is a bit of a funky wrestler at times and definately like to establish tie up positions. Jessie needs to be physical and wrestle from disciplined body position. She definately has the ability to capitalize against the Kazak athlete. Her second match would likely be versus Li of China. A very explosive athlete whom Jessie has split matches with, 1 win and 1 loss, over the past season. Similar to Huynh's weight class at 51kg Japan and Sweden (reigning World Champ meet in a very pivitol first match. Jessie has been working very hard and steadily improving over the last season. She is capable of beating anyone in this weight class.

Matches start at 1pm here. Gallays, Verbeek, and Bouchard all weigh in tomorrow at 5:30-7:00pm.

Going to take a little rest then watch a few matches on our opponents.
I will post more later,

Coach V

Killing Time

2010-09-06T20:07:00.000-07:00

They say good things come to those who wait... thankfully our wait for the 2010 World Championships begins to end today with weigh-ins for Carol Huynh at 48kg and Jessie MacDonald at 51kg.

As the days here in Moscow start to run together it is nice to see the the light at the end of tunnel approaching! Last year on this blog (for those who remember) I was explaining about some of the silly things we discuss and debate about in the course of a day. Our athletes are usually focussed on about an hour long training session as the highlight, and the rest consists of killing time... Last year's eternal debate over whether texting in the past tense is actually called "I texted you..., or I text you" will rage on for years to come I'm sure. All of us are a year older, but in no way seem a year wiser! The silly debates and discussions continue. Just a few examples the other day we got into an hour long debate on what the actual difference is between a Cappacino and a Latte! If someone actually knows please dont contact me cause I really dont care... haha. Coach Hinds in his drive and desire to uncover truth came back to the Hotel and actually looked it up on the internet, and made sure to copy and email all of us! OMG, are we hurting that much for entertainment...

Then there was Jessie yesterday on the bus excited about a new Personal Best! It wasnt her time for a 10 K run, or a new weights max... it was a new top score on her solitare game! Then Hinds (always thirsting for knowledge) started talking actual "Solitare Strategy" with Jess. Are we not the most interest team you have ever heard of?!

All kidding aside, the spirits of our whole team is pretty great. Our girls seem pretty loose and to be enjoying the process. At 5:30 today our Journey officilly begins. Yesterday to start of the Greco tournament Russia and Iran put on a clinic. Russia had three medals (One gold, two bronze), while Iran had a meer two champions! I could handle a day like that! I am sure everyone of our seven kids here (actually 14 with the men) will give a full accounting of there abilities on the Mat. No matter what the final outcome I do want to say I am proud of the way they have prepared, in all cases over the years to get here. This is another tournament in what has already been some amazing careers. I am excited for tomorrow and our girls chance to step on the mat in Moscow!

The last thing, which I dont do often enough, is thank all the people who are surrounding our team here (and at home)! Honestly our athletes are not working that hard compaired to what they went through training up to this tournament, yet some of our support staff is working tirelessly! Surinder and Rick on the medical side are making sure nothing is missed and treating almost all the members of our team daily to ensure they are in top form. Chris Stefanopolis (Team leader) has most of us in stitches with laughter every day. Tamara, the coaches... the list goes on. Our team is in good hands.
The other day I got a great couple of texts from one of my best friends. Reminding me to take things one step at a time, do what i can do, and stay positive. I really appreciated it! Thanks to all those friends, family, and the wrestling community in general behind us at home...

All for now!
V

Worlds start today with Greco

2010-09-05T21:24:00.000-07:00

Well the World Championships officially start today with the Greco Competition. I wish I could say that is the reason I couldn't sleep last night and eventually just got up at 4:30 in the morning. The ten hour time change is a bit of a challenge, but to be honest not to bad. I went down stairs and tried to do some reading, yet found my mind wandering, over and over, thinking about the upcoming competition. Today Carol and Jessie will start their way down toward scratch weight. They weigh-in tomorrow afternoon.

We are going over to the competition site today for another light work out. I will stick around after our mat session to catch the start of the competition at 1pm. It is kinda important to get a feel for how things are going to run the day of competition so that we minimize any surprizes. Team Leader Chris Stefanopolis, will also do a dry run and take the morning busses to the competition with the competing athletes. This way we will have an idea how crazy that process might be. If we need to we can also take the metro across the street from our hotel to the venue, it is not too long of a trip. Ive also asked him to check out the hotel across the street from the competition venue and see if there is availability there. As the tournament gets going (i hope our athletes will again find themselves wrestling in medal matches) it may be wiser to just have them relax there closer to the venue. Id prefer them not go though the stress of taking public transportation back and forth from the competition (Ive already explained how fun that can be).

These are all the details I have running through my mind as lay in bed at 4 am. You want to do your best to ensure that nothing important is overlooked. And then I find myself logging onto digitalscouting.com to watch some more matches of a few of our key opponents. Trying to make sure I/we have a good handle on what to expect on the mats, and elliminate as many surprizes as we can there. Doing a little bit of homework goes a long way at this competition!

Anyways, everyone should be up by now... So I will sign off.
Coach V

Team Canada arrives in Moscow

2010-09-05T03:20:00.000-07:00

First off my apologies for the delay in blogging. We are alive and well in the Hotel Cosmos in Moscow. It has taken me two days to get internet access but will be fine from now on.

The place is huge... After a very tiring day of travel it took us 2 hours in horrific traffic (others took four) to get to the host hotel, and then getting rooms and getting settled... Oh well we survived.

The hotel is immense looks nice and lavish on the outside. A little dated on the inside. Yet pretty cool... Have not hit the Karioke Bar yet but maybe soon (just kidding). The food has been adequate, I wont rave or anything. But I did get some good borsch which is kinda hard to come by in my neck of the woods.

Okay you are probably interested in the status of the team...

So far on the Women's team the first 5 weight classes have arrived (Huynh through Bouchard). We have had two short one hour mat sessions each day and I have been quite happy with the energy and mindset of the girls. The first day they took us to a training center that was pretty awesome. It had three floors of wrestling mats, weight rooms, gymnasiums, and the fourth floor actually had a museum dedicated to wrestling! The wrestling room we trained in had a large banner/mural for a the wall with four of the top russian wrestlers! Action shots of Satiev, Sajidov, Gatislov, and Manorova (I guess i am a bit of a wrestling geek for knowing them all). We brought a good stereo and thanks to Jessie we had an awesome practice grooving to the sounds of Justin Bieber, and Myley Cyrus! Haha

Today we went to the Tournament site for our training. The Warm up area had six international sized mats which was great. Again more great tunes thanks to Bondy (Macdonald)... The stadium is very impressive, very large! The practice today was good again, yet I could tell the time change was catching up with the girls a bit. Four of them were up at 3 or 4 in the morning, so by the time practice came at 10:30 they were ready for a nap! Happily, they shook off the cobwebs and got the job done. Jessie tried to break Todd's nose but other than that it was a good work out. The volume was pretty low but the intensity was dialed way up! I left practice again with a good feeling about where are girls are and how poised they appear ready to perform.

Last evening, a number of coaches and support staff took the metro down to red square. It was a bit of an adventure. Thank goodness Tamara Medwidski speaks Ukrainian and can read the Russian language. There was a celebration on called Moscow days and Red square was closed off to the public, but the whole area was buzzing with thousands of people. We walked around and took in the sites and the energy, there were street performers and a big outdoor concert. It was pretty interesting and a nice break away. This morning a few of the girls were not impressed that we had ventured out without them, so Coach Hinds and I headed back to the subway and took them down to check out the centre for themselves. Only one small detour (screw up) thanks to yours truely on the metro but more or less a nice afternoon.

This is my 14th trip to the Senior World Championships, every year I am always amazed by a few things that i forget in the time between World Championships. One is, if this was the "Line Budding World Championships" we would be in big trouble! Every year I forget how crazy it is doing simple things we usually take for granted! Our first morning our Women's team (Surprizingly prompt and on time for some reason) were the first froup waiting for pick up by the tournament busses to go to the training venue. Despite standing right at the curb we somehow didnt even make it on the first bus as is pulled up! All these polite gentlemen decided they needed to push there way on the bus first... Food lines pretty much the same, and when I was trying to check in at the hotel desk when we first arrived (oh my goodness). At times I feel like I need to be a zen master not to snap... but in the end we do always get what we need. And I am usually very impressed with the way our kids act at an event like this...
Okay, I know... real exciting stuff! Sorry for venting a bit. We are having fun too!

One thing I should mention was that EDMONTON was awarded the Senior Women's World Championships in 2012. As you probably know the London Olympics only has four women's Olympic Weights. Therefore Fila will be running a Women's Worlds following the Olympics which will include all seven weights. This will happen in Canada, and if past events are an indicator, the Edmonton group will do a great job! Congrats to them.

I will post again tomorrow.
Hope you are excited back home!!!
Coach Vierling

Moscow time... Canada's Senior Team set to depart for the 2010 Worlds

2010-09-01T11:34:00.000-07:00

Well its the day before our long trek around the World to Russia. I'm sitting in a coffee shop (on my second cup) trying to finish off all the last minute stuff. I had quite a bit of positive feedback from friends, family, and fans in the wrestling community after last years Worlds in Denmark about this blog. So I will again attempt to deliver an insiders view of this years Senior World Championships!

First and formost I will attempt to focus on our team and ensuring all of the things we need to make happen in Moscow, actually do. Following the completion of those things I will attempt daily to write about our experiences in Russia. I will spend a bit of time later in the day updating the blog with the World Championships site address. Also for all the diehard fans out there, Fila has announced that this will be the first Worlds in which every match will be broadcast in real time! So maybe this blog wont be needed in the end...

I am glad to do everything I can to support the great people on our National Team competing for our country on the World stage. If this blog even in the smallest way helps to draw awareness and support to our team then I am glad to take the time to do it!

All for now!

Coach Vierling

2010-01-09T11:50:00.000-08:00

The camp is over. The last of our Canadian team made our way home today after a solid week of training. The camp has its highs and lows as an athlete, most practices the energy is great and the competition is tough. Its a skill and challenge to be able to make it through every tough practice and as we do it we all grow stronger as wrestlers. We were put through a good last session after having a well needed easy morning practice filled with fun, though horribly played, volleyball game. The evening session consisted of short goes no longer than a minute. Some situations one partner had to score in one minute, then 30 seconds then 20 and 10 seconds. I remember thinking hey if i can do it in a minute (offense or defence) then maybe i can do it for 30, and 20 and 10.. sometimes breaking it down makes the task much easier.
Ive been to many camps around the world and its helped me grow and learn and build the confidence I need to be able to compete. The experience is invaluable and its great that we can have these opportunities to make ourselves better although at the time the challenges may seem hard to overcome. Now that Im home I feel like I accomplished and endured a tough camp. This point in the season is great for expanding your wrestling and learning new things.
Every opportunity is a part of the journey for attaining your goals and Im so proud of our team and all the hard work they've done. There are no shortcuts.

Justine Bouchard

Team Canada Testing Results

2010-01-08T13:08:00.000-08:00

Just going through some of the test results from our strength testing down at the camp here...
Thought I might shed a little light on the quality of athletes who represent us on our National Team. Ive asked a few of our veterans if I could post their results on here. This will give some of the up and coming athletes out there an idea of how high to set their sights in their off mat training... Not all of these results are indicitative of their personal bests but these are the numbers they put up at this camp after three hard days of training!

Carol Huynh (48kg)
Bench press 115lbs - 2 reps, Pull ups - 27, Hold plank position - 7 minutes, Full sit ups (no feet hold) 33/min
Tonya Verbeek (55kg)
Bench press 135lbs - 7 reps, Pull ups - 11, Hold plank position - 5:14, Full sit ups (no feet hold) 23/min
Justine Bouchard (63kg)
Bench Press 135 - 15 reps, pull ups - 18, Hold plank position - 7:06, Full sit ups (no feet hold) 29/min

Other notable performances:
Erica Wiebe (72kg) Full sit ups - 38/min
Jill Gallays (55kg) Pull ups - 24
Lindsay Rushton (48 kg) Hold full plank - 7 minutes, Full sit ups 35/min
Jazzie Barker (59kg) Bench Press - 135lbs - 6 reps

Canadian Team in Colorado

2010-01-07T20:53:00.000-08:00

Ive had a request for names of athletes who attended the Winter camp here in Colorado...

48kg: A. McKilligan, C. Huynh,L. Rushton, J. Slinn, R. MacDonald, A. King, J. Mian
51kg: D. Ford, G. Haley, G. Nguyen, V. Brown, J. Parsons
55kg: T. Verbeek, J. Gallays, M. Dick, A. Ross, N. Brady
59kg: J. Barker
63kg: J. Bouchard, A. Kilroy
67kg: M. Buydens, V. Wilson, L. McKibben, A. Leslee
72kg: L. Callahan, E. Wiebe, I. VanVliet

Coaches: L. Vierling, M. Calder, G. Sissauri, D. McGee, M. Reid

Finished up 5-6 matches today! Pretty solid effort all around...

Day three and four morning...

2010-01-07T11:56:00.000-08:00

Hi all,
The sessions for Day three...

Morning included a number of 1 minute goes with athletes facing a particular senario (up a point/down a point, up 2/down two. With three different partners...
Then there were 6 two minute rounds...
Also worked on some zone situations or push out drills...

The morning workout was the last in a string of solid mat practices. By its end you could see there was not much more we could expect to get out of our athletes on the day.

The evening session was a recovery session where athletes were expected to focus on a light load to enhance recovery and regeneration. Light cardio, or sauna and stretch, or game....

This morning both teams arrived mostly in singlets ready to wrestle matches. Athletes did an individual 25minute warm up, then we ran 9 match lengths. (each athlete had to wrestle three matches). We will run another set of matches this afternoon.

Prior to the session we had a talk to the team about the importance of getting everything you can out of these opportunities. If you had an opponent of their back to pin them, to work right into turns off of take downs, and generally wrestle focussed and tough. MAKE THINGS HAPPEN...

Over all I think the coaches were quite pleased with the wrestling we witnessed this morning. Our team executted well in general, and very few clinch situations arose. YET... we still need to learn how to make adjustments in the course of a match against a tough opponent. At times we return (again and again) to our bread and butter techniques and refuse to move on if they are not working. Also at times we need to making slight body position adjustments to meet our opponents best techniques. Getting caught on the same takedown in all three rounds should be a major concern when it happens. Our most experienced and successful athletes still get taken down on occasion, yet they learn from it immediatedly and are not caught napping a second time. In fact they often counter attack successfully if an opponent repeats an attack... they pick up the patterns and use it against their adversary!

It is great to be at a camp where athletes can measure themselves against quality opponents. The nice thing about it is each countries girls wants to win for themself and our team. It makes for some very good hard fought scrambles and matches...

Cant wait to watch more this afternoon....

Reflections from day two

2010-01-05T20:15:00.000-08:00

Rather than just try and relay my thoughts on the camp I have tried to ask a number of people their thoughts and or impressions of the camp thus far... Just to recap the day we had two mat sessions today.

I ran the morning practice at 9:00am, which was foccused on situation drills and some standing scrimmage.
The practice plan included:
20minute partner warm -up
20 minutes of drilling with resistance, (5min individual, 5 min High crotch, 5 min single, 5 min counter wrestling.
20 minutes Groups of 3 Situation drills (offense 30sec, defense 30sec, off 30 sec) Situtions focussed on legs attacks in varied positions. HIGH CROTCH- normal, seated, clinche... SINGLE- normal, Side single (on knees), back side single (on knees).
20 minutes 3 minutes sparring x 3, 48kg-55kg Group 1 59kg-72kg Group 2
15 Minutes Conditioning (5mins-Ropes, 5 minutes Core circuit, 5 minutes strength circuit)
After the practice the coaches sat down to discuss the technical focus we would cover at the afternoon session, based on some of the observations from the situation drills.

The afternoon session at 4:30 included:
20 minutes Group games and warm up
1 hour Split group into two groups 55kg and below went downstairs and did a stregth testing protical with Mac Reid our lead strength and conditioning coordinator with Women's Wrestling
59kg and up on the mats technique session. Focussed on refining our finishing and defense primarily from the high crotch situation... Maintaining good position and refining finishing from the mat. Also counter wrestling and recovering defensive positioning in disadvantaged positions.
1 hour Groups switched

Comments from day Two:

Coach Gia spoke to the group at the end of our rather lengthy evening session and a long day on the mats. "I was very impressed with how focussed our girls were all day. they were very motivated and not afraid to ask questions... I can see why our girls have done so well and why the women's program is getting better."

Coach Calder talked about "how nice it is to come together and have such a constructive camp. Both countries have a lot of their best wrestlers here and we are working well together. I it a very important part of having our athletes succeed in the future."

Megan Buydens "I learned a couple of things today, best of all was a nice trick from Marty... I call it a dirty old man trick but i think it will help me not to get caught in a high crotch situation... i also like this years camp in that we are doing more scrimmage than the last few years, which is what I need to do with this many good partners."

Tonya Verbeek "Its nice to see such a young and promising group of girls here. So keen and excited to learn and better themselves. Its a good time of the year to push your self and face these challenges."

Mac Reid "Physically I think a lot of our girls see the importance of strength and conditioning as it pertains to their wrestling. Alot of the girls i have seen over the years are improving there overall strength. it is nice to have some of the real vets like Verbeek, and Huynh really showing how its done."

Justine Bouchard "this morning I was already super sore... but you come to practice warm up and have to go hard anyways..."

Tomorrow in the Morning we are back on the mats... with a recovery session in the evening...

All our kids are are taking it in stride so far...
More tomorrow...

Leigh

First Day Sets the stage

2010-01-05T19:49:00.000-08:00

Greeting from Colorado,

This will be my third Training camp in Colorado. everytime I arrive here I am still in awe of the facilities food and over all ambience. I remember not being able to stop smiling here my very first practice because everything was just so COOL... well my smile changed a little as I gasped for air in the Colorado altitude as Leigh and Terry and the other OTC coaches put us through an intense training camp back in 2007, and I anticipate the this years camp to be much the same.

After a light workout on Sunday evening, it felt good this morning to get in a session focussed on group technique. The evening we had a lighter warm-up then got right into five rounds of five minute matches. At a camp with two of the best countries in womens wrestling it is pretty easyu to get a line up of matches with previous world champions and World medalists. It was a real challenge.

After the session i knew we will really need to look within ours this week to meet the hard work ahead. I am excited and know my Canadian team mates are ready to rise up to the Challenge...
More to come...

Erica Wiebe :)

Greetings from The US Olympic Training Center

2010-01-04T12:02:00.000-08:00

Well i had about forty text messages to my cell phone yesterday from delayed, rerouted, and just generally annoyed athletes. The majority of our Canadian contingent have arrived to Colorado Springs, most with luggage... so all is good!

Being at higher altitudes (coupled with the remnants of the Christmas break) the initial couple of days here came be a little challenging. Last night we had about 15 girls go through a light workout to get everyone adjusting from the travel and start the process of getting use to a different environment. We had two rousing games of soccor followed by about 30 minutes on the mats. No sparing but just a good opportunity to sweat and fill the lungs with the colorado air. Most seemed in very good spirits and ready to get going with the camp.

For those who dont know the facilities at the OTC are tremendous... The dorms are older yet fine. The food is outstanding and the training facilities are very good. We have 4 international sized mats set up in a gymnasium for our camp. This morning over twenty Canadians took part in the first official practice of the camp. Going through the planned schedule with Coach Steiner the week is intended to have a good amount of sparring and situational wrestling between our two country's.

Practice at 9:00am Terry set the stage for a challenging camp first thing this morning with a fairly lengthy and intense warm up. Our athletes split into partners and had a chance to drill for about 10 minutes with the focus on Ground wrestling. This was individual time to work that was not directed toward a specific technique or series. Following the drilling athletes were divided up by weight classes and began ground scrimmage. The same partner wrestled top then bottom for a number of 30 second periods (some open scrimmage, some situational scrimmage, starting in a specific position... eg. Gut wrench grip, leg ride on, lace position etc.) everyone was on the mat at once. This sequence was followed for three different sets of partners. Which ended up taking about 25-30 minutes of ground wrestling. After the scrimmage, practice ended with some directed drilling which emphasised a couple of the ground situations the coaches had observed.

We finished up with a short meeting for the Canadian Team. The key messages emphasised a need to be really proactive and take care of our bodies through-out the week (eg. staying hydrated at this elevated altitude, icing, etc) Also a need to be a strong and supportive TEAM CANADA, to push each other mentally and pick each other up when bodies get sore and things get tough. We also need to focus on the process of getting better and not just on winning. Everyone will face partners over the week who will get the better of them at some time, in some situation. There are lots of strong wrestlers here. Getting too caught up in winning and lossing will cause them to panic. It is just like losing a round in a tough match. You must refoccus and make the necessary adjustments the next time. We want to make wrestling happen and not just play it safe. Lets hope we can remember these things when the time comes!

By the afternoon session at 4:30 almost all of our 25+ Canadian Women will be here. It will be another scrimmage focussed session. It will include some longer 10 minute goes and some situational drills. This time, standing wrestling. Coach Calder and Sissaouri are now here, along with myself and Coach Dan McGee from Regina. I am really looking forward to seeing our girls get challenged and respond in the week ahead!

Wish us luck!!!

I have asked some athletes to give their perspective on the camp as well. So after the evening session it will not be me, but one of our wrestlers whom will write the next entry...

2009 ends, while 2010 awaits!

2009-12-31T21:13:00.000-08:00

Well with the end of 2009 brings with it a chance to reflect on the last season. A fairly successful year and an extremely busy one. Looking back our Junior and Senior Women competed in 15 different countries in 2009. (Alphabetically: Austria, Azerbijian, Bulgaria, China, Denmark, India, Germany, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, USA, Venezuela). We were also involved in training camps with many of the top wrestling nations in the world.

The fall is always filled with lots of evaluation and performance analysis... a time to review and reflect on the Women's National Program and determine its strengths and weaknesses. I am very encouraged when i take a step back and look at the season through various looking glasses. I am very excited to see the commitment of many of our top coaches across the country to coaching women. This has been a strength of the Canadian System in my opinion and when you look at the quality of coaches on the Women's side at the World's (Junior and Senior), as well as Pan Ams, and many other tours it is very promising. The strong support and professionalized training regime our women follow throughout the country really helps us to be so tough on the international stage.

Every year after the Senior Worlds i analyze our performances to try and look for patterns. This years we had some very positive performance indicators. We ended up winning 19 matches versus 7 losses at the worlds this year. Against nations in the top ten we actually won 79% of the bouts (which to me says we are not intimidated by any draw). This was also the first year that we have not had a lossing record against any nation in the world! In other years at least one nation (usually Japan, or China) would have a better record head to head at the world championships. No nation beat us more than we beat them this year! (Against the top five nations we were 1-0 vs AZE, 2-1 vs Japan, 1-1 vs UKR, 1-1 vs RUS). Also of great significance to me was our win-loss ratio of three round matches. We won 5 out of 6 matches that went three rounds at the Worlds (or 86%). I believe this is a testament to our athletes no quit attitude and their physical and mental conditioning! Five of the seven matches we lost were to eventual medalists, and a sixth was top 5. This is consistent with the last few years, in that if we do get beat, it is usually only to the very top ranked people in a given weight class. (Or in general we do not lose to weak performers). Our offense compared to the all other nations was the highest scoring at this years Senior Worlds! Yet our defensive efficiency was the 6th ranked (yet very consitent over the last few seasons). I believe this shows (in general) our Canadian Women's style is a "Get after it" style... We try to make things happen and not get sucked into the 0-0 clinche game which nobody really can control!

We finished up 2009 with a very interesting trip to India for the Commonwealth Championships... The new year starts with a winter camp with our greatest ally and a great rival, The United States. The USA has a tremendous Women's Program and annually we train at least twice with their team. A number of years back Terry Steiner (US Women's Coach) and I sat down and discussed our need to work together to strengthen our programs. We do not have the advantage of geography that Europe or Asia has. So it is imperative that we not hide from each other and push each others teams (in a positive way). By avoiding training and competition together both programs will suffer from a lack of true challenge, and this will ultimately hurt us at the highest level.

January 3rd we will start 2010 with our first training camp of the year. I am very excited to get to work with about 25 of our top Women's athletes. I am also excited to have Marty Calder and Gia Sissouri attending this years camp! The upcoming season will hold many new challenges and opportunities for our women wrestlers. Ultimately all our experiences are leading toward London and the 2012 Olympics!

Highlights of the 2010 season will include: Senior World Championships in Moscow Russia, Junior World Championships in Budapest Hungary, and University World Championships in Turin Italy. In October we have the Commonwealth Games in New Dehli india (Which includes all 7 womens weigh classes)! I am looking forward to building on the successes of the past leading toward a future that is very very bright!

Thanks to all those that helped make it happen in 2009! I challenge our team to do even better in 2010!!!

All done in Herning, Dugrenier does it again!!!

2009-09-25T13:42:00.000-07:00

Ok, I must admit I am exhausted right now... It has been a super hectic week yet as our fans and followers know a great one, again. Martine did it, she took it to the Russian in the finals and ended our tournament with a fall, and a world championships gold medal.
Our team tied with japan for second (yet they had two champions, and we had one) so we were officially placed third. Standing on the podium tonight for me was as always a thrill and a moment for me to sit back and reflect on what we have done over the past year.

Obviously at this tournament we had our "World Team" a great group of athletes and proven performers... I am always excited to work with this group but interestingly enough we had about 13 international camps and Tours (for women) this past year. And on every tour whether it was our number 1, 2, or 3 athletes, U24, Junior we had great success! It is so exciting...
This is a moment in time to celebrate...
Im exhausted, and spent, but feel very excited!
Excited for the present, and excited for the future!
All of Canadian Wrestling needs to be proud of our team!
Thanks again to the coaches, the training partners, loved ones, and supporters of our team (and future team) members.
I leave on a bus for the airport at 1:40 am... not much time to decompress or celebrate our victories this week.
Thanks for following and supporting our team... they definately deserve it.
Good night from Denmark...

Day three update

2009-09-25T08:40:00.000-07:00

Another fairly busy day today. As we get ready for the last session (for us) Martine has battled her way back into the Gold medal match!

At 72kg Ohenewa started off the day with a victory over Greece. A hard fought three round decision. Ohenewa faced Stanka Zlateva of Bulgaria in her second round match. She lost to the defending World Champ 1-0, 1-1. After the match we looked at the draw and thought there was a very good chance that she would get back into the repachage. Unfortunately the athlete from China had a different idea. She defeated Zlateva in three rounds to dash Ohenewa's hope of getting back into the placings.
At 67kg Martine had a full dance card this afternoon. She managed victories versus Mongolia, Azerbijian, Ukraine, and japan to reach the Gold medal match. In the finals she will face the Russian Bartnovskaya. The Russian dodged a scare in the semi finals versus Nigeria. But had an otherwise easy road to the gold. She has a really nice right side high crotch. Yet I have a feeling they will try and wrestle Martine quite passively in hopes of going to a clinche. I might be worng but we will see. I believe Martine will be too much physically for the russian opponent. A few of the wrestlers today have tried to shut her out and too her credit she stayed focussed, didnt get frustrated and kept after it.

We are all a little worn down but we have just one more session to make it through and lets hope it will be a great one for canadian wrestling.

Wish us luck!
I

Verbeek and Bouchard reach the Podium

2009-09-24T15:20:00.000-07:00

Well a very fruitful last session tonight!

A couple more medals to add to the Canadian Wrestling history books. A few of the evenings matches were very tentative, tactical and safe. I was excited to see our girls commit to wrestling all day long. It is such an absolute pleasure to work with athletes who are coachable, positive, resilient and, above all things, brave. None of the actual champions of the tournament are afraid to go wrestle and compete. If you want to be the best "I believe" that you can't wait for someone to make a mistake or fall down for you. You have to generate scoring opportunities from offence or defence. Our girls trained hard coming into this competition (and more importantly over the years) and they didnt let that effort get wasted by not opening up when the time comes. It is heartbreaking for our team when things dont go the way we want and elating when it does...we have a great team! Congrats to the girls tonight. Also thanks and congratulations to all the training partners, coaches and others that support our team and sport. It was awesome tonight, our ten Canadians sounded like a hundred in the stands!!!

55kg Tonya Verbeek proved why she continues to be one of the best wrestlers in the world. She was the first to commit and hit some very nice attacks. She was able to move back and forth between her double leg and off-side single. Every time Gomis started to expect one shot Tonya changed her attack and caught her off guard. It was great to see that smile and familiar wave to the crowd we've all come to love. She is definitely one of the most respected competitors in Women's wrestling today.

59kg Katie Patroch lost to Vaselenko of Ukraine in the second round by fall. As we expected the Ukrainian worked repeatedly for her front head lock. In both rounds she was able to bring Katie down to the mat with her physical snap downs. Katie started to get a little frustrated as Vaselenko controlled most of the ties and positions and made it difficult to get her offense going. After the match we worked on the situations and talked about the great day she had. Last year 7th with two wins, this year 5th with three wins. Katie's wrestling is definately moving in the right direction. After the tears, a smile came back to her face... She had a great day.

63kg Justine Bouchard pitched a shut out against the Polish wrestler in the bronze medal match. Each round Justine hit a solid attack and kept adjusting right through to the finish. The Polish wrestler is extremely defensive and tactical. So we knew it would take quality, commited attacks to get the job done. Again I was so glad to see our athlete take the action to their opponent. Once she had the lead the Polish girl failed to really threaten any scoring actions and Justine stayed active and aggressive with her hands and actually continued to take attacks. The Polish girl has been on the podium at the Worlds and European Championships a number of times but not this year. It was a fantastic last match to a terrific day.

Tomorrow we are excited to end off the tournament with another great day. Stay tuned...

Wrestling for Three Bronze Medals in Denmark

2009-09-24T08:31:00.000-07:00

Forgive me if this is a bit of a ramble, we have been running ragged all afternoon!
Where to start... We knew we would be in some tough battles today and our girls here did am amazing job competing hard every point, every match. We won 9 and lost 3 matches this morning. Everyone of our losses was to someone who made the final, and they were all very close.

55kg What can i say about Tonya, she continues to amaze me. She dominated Poland, North Korea, and Kazakstan enroute to her semi final rematch with Saori Yoshida of Japan. Tonya has shown time and again she is probably the best ground wrestler in the womens game right now. Almost everytime she had an opportunity on top she turned her opponents at will in her first three matches. Extremely relaxed and composed she entered the semis on very short recovery after she had finished as the last of the quarter finals. The semi final vs Yoshida was quite close losing 3-0, 3-2, tonya hit a great double late and had Yoshida off the mat but only converted out of bounds for one point. In the Bronze medal match tonya will face old rival from France Anna Gomis who has had a very good tournament here including a win over the russian natalia Golts. It should be a very entertaining and athletic match.

59kg Katie also made the bronze medal match to improve on her performance from last years 7th place. She defeated Nigeria, China, then lost to Poland in the Quarter finals. After Poland made the finals she stepped into a repachage match vs Moldova. Katie showed great poise and focus in her matches this afternoon. She was able to come from behind in a couple of rounds late which is something she has shown great improvement on this year. She will face the Ukrainian athlete for the bronze here. The girl is quite soild defensively and has an excellent front head lock, yet in their previous meeting Katie squeezed out a close three round decision at the World cup.... Should be exciting.

63kg After defeating Dominican republic, Justine lost a razor thin three round decision to last years world Silver medalist from russia. 1-1, 2-1, 1-1 Justine actually out scored her opponent through the match but gave the last point with just seconds on the clock in a great match... She was devistated, yet two matches later the russian had made the finals and new life was blown back into her sails. She did not disappoint teching Kazakstan, and beating the American 5-1, 3-0 in the repachage rounds. Tonight she will face Poland the current European Champion for the bronze medal. These two wrestled in Austria in the semi finals this year and Bouchard won a very close three round decision...

We just finished a little meal and our girls are getting a little recovery work done by our "Team Canada medical staff" Recharging the engines and getting ready to go tonight at 7:30.

If people are not aware, at 67 Kg Martine has drawn Mongolia out of the chutes tomorrow and at 72kg Ohenewa has Greece. I am going to grab a coffee, take my shoes off and kick back for a bit... Will right later!

Go Canada...

Women's Day One

2009-09-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

Greetings all,
Well... an up and down afternoon. Some exciting matches again.
Jessie started the day with Poland and as expected got pulled into a bit of a tactical match. Not a lot of offense in the first period which ended 0-0, the Polaish athlete was awarded the clinche and finished the round with the point. Second round Jessie di a better job of picking up the activity and hit a good single, the ensuing scramble was pretty tough and exciting jessie levered the Polish off of the mat and up to the standing position, but unfortunately got in a bit of a rush and ended up going back down to the mat underneath her opponent. the round ended 0-0 again, and AGAIN the Polish girl was awarded the clinche. Bad luck for Jessie. what can I say, that is the hard part of wrestling with these rules... I would love to see an actual point put on the board to decide the match but..... In the next round the polish girl lost to the North korean and elliminated Jessie from the tournament.

Lindsay Started off the morning with two three round matches. In her first match against China she counter attacked her opponent successfully to her back to win the first round. The second round held less action and no real good offensive positions. The Chinese athlete was awarded a (reallly questionable) one point effort throw to win the round late. After a major effort to refoccus Linds in the second period she beared down and hit a nice leg attack and converted it right to back points and the eventual fall! Glad to see Linds go out and take control and hit her offense the way i know she can!
She followed up with a match that put a huge smile on my face! A three round decision over japan. In the first round she did a great job reacting to the japanese athletes right side shot but failed to capitalize where she could have. In round two and three Linds took some chances and put the japanese Wrestler on her back late in both rounds. Two times Linds took a shot and came up to her feet off of the ensuing scramble and arm threw the japanese girl. I really thought she had the fall in round two but to Lindsays credit she got it done the hard way. Late in the third round... A tribute to her toughenss and conditioning.
A pretty short turn around later Linds found herself wrestling the British girl in the Quarter finals. While she wrestled well against the open moving style of the asian wrestlers she got pulled into a control match here. In the first round she stood up too high and was head lock thrown to here back and held, to start the match down 4-0. Unfortunately that is that was enough to throw Lindsays confidence (or focus) off base. In the second round she was hit on a 2on1 firemans and was flipping again with the trapped arm for an additional two points. She walked off of the mat very frustrated with the match. In the semi finals the british girl lost to the Azerbijian wrestler (actually her cousin), both of them originally from the ukraine.

Both of our girls are definately capable of being successful at this tournament. We have to continue to improve at impossing our style of wrestling on our opponents no matter what their style might be. The worlds have begun, and each match has to be a physical and mental battle. Start to finish plain and simple. Our girls can be successful against the best...
Sorry for the run on sentences...

Evans first match was while Rushton was wrestling so I cant comment too much. He lost a very close decision to Greece. the last round ended 6-6. Coach Abdou was not at all happy with the key call in the round where evans opponent was awarded 3 and Evan 2 on a Double Leg/Body lock Sequence. Evan double his opponent straight to his back and was carried through by the greek wrestler. Abdou felt it was clearly MacDonalds 3 point action and it ultimately decided the round on the tie.

Tomorrows action,

55kg Tonya has Bilenska of Poland first match tomorrow. I dont want to underestimate her but Tonya should be a very tough draw for her. We have seen her quite a few times.
59kg Katie has Nigeria first match tomorrow, I have some footage from the African championships so we will take a look. Bronze medalist at the African Championships.
63kg Justine has Dominican Republic to start the tournament. Bronze medalist at the Pan American Championships. We will take a look at her 2009 Pan Am Tournament tonight.

Day two ends..

2009-09-22T13:29:00.000-07:00

Well day two has come to an end. Some super exciting matches again. Our men had a great start to the day. Saeed went 1 and 1, with a win vs Egypt followed by a super close loss to fedorishyn of the Ukraine (last years Olympic silver medalist). Fedorishyn ended up lossing in the semis to the eventual world champion in the third round on a clinche! Thats how close things are...
Trav had a pretty tough day, started out with a great match against Mongolia but then lost a really close dissapointing match to Venezula. He wrestled hard the entire match, yet came up on the wrong side of a couple of zone calls. And a long delay while the score clock was getting reset. Long story short had the match followed a continous flow, I am pretty sure that would have favored travis's style of wrestling and fitness. His opponent was very tactical and defensive which, in this instance, payed off for him. I am sure travis would love to have that match back.
Arjan had a very good day. His first match of Armenia is actually a Russian (from Ossetia) who had transferred nationality for the worlds. Arjan did a great job of meeting and redirecting the attacks of his opponent. He won a three round decision, and then went on to beat the Iraq wrestler in his second match. That match was never in jeopardy... Arjan look in control from the outset and picked his opponent appart. He lost to the eventual silver medalist from Iran in the quarter finals. The first round was extremely close with some solid counter attack opportunities on arjans part. The second round the iranian scored a takedeown turn to take a lead that was to big to overcome. In his final match he was out positioned by the Georgian wrestler who won a 1-0, 1-0 match. Overall, I believe the day had some amazing matches.

Tomorrow we start our tournament. Rushton has drawn China first match. This is not one of their proven competitors at 48kgs, so we really dont know what to expect here. As a group the Chinese athletes have proven to typically be very physical and at times abrasive competitors. I think this is a match Linds is definately ready to face. We dont want to take anyone too lightly, or over estimate anyone. A most likely second match is Sakamoto of japan (3rd last year). Linds lost to sakamoto at the Golden Grand prix in baku, but i felt she was very competitive. We watched a number of matches tonight and I know she has the tools to compete well against the japanese opponent. She will need to stay composed and be ready for a tough match.
Jessie has drawn Poland first. They wrestled against each other a few months ago in Germany. I hope Jessie goes out with her game plan to be physical and wrestle with some pressure. I believe if she is aggressive she will prove to much for her polish opponent. the Polish women team are notorious for wrestling very tactically and trying to tie and control position on their opponents. Jessie will need to stay aggressive and not get frustrated or in a rush. She will make openings if she stays active. Her next match will likely be Ukraine ( a former junior world champion) they have split decisions this year in there two meetings. So the rubber match at the worlds sounds very exciting. The ukrainian puts together flurries of action but can begin to unravel if you stay on her. She is quite solid and might be the top (other) athlete on Jessies side of the draw.
Evan has drawn Greece in his first match tomorrow.

Our competition moves into full swing from this point forward. We have three athletes weighing in tomorrow in the morning. All three appear in a very good state here tonight at the hotel. We had our medical support staff make the 45 minute drive to our homebase to do a bit of recovery work on our girls competing tomorrow and trying to freshen up our kids making weigh in the morning. We have a great support team here who help to keep the athletes feeling good and keep the rest of us smiling... Id also like to mention what a great job John Dawson is doing as our team leader. He was extremely tired... he has done a number of shuttles here and there today, including a early morning shuttle with our weigh in people and a late night shuttle with our med staff.

All for now... We need to get some sleep for tomorrow. Having fun as usual!
Wish you were here...

Fila News

2009-09-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

Well the last few days have been filled with wrestling and wrestling news...
Many of you know that Guelph had put in a bid to host the 2011 Senior World Championships. For those of you who have not officially heard, the Worlds that year has been awared to Istanbul Turkey. Also of Great interest to me was all of the speculation surrounding the Olympic Program for 2012. The current and official word is there will be NO changes to the Olympic Program for London. The current configuration of weight classes 7-7-4 will be maintained with no additional Women's olympic weights... Not the news I was hoping to hear at all, yet honestly not the bigggest of surprizes in hindsight.
I wish I was sharing better news, however I thought I would let those of you reading this blog, know what is being said. If there are any further developments I will be sure to let you know.
Just about to jump on the bus for weigh-in. Linds and Jess were pretty close to weight this morning. I am sure they are not going to complain about the earlier Weigh-in times at this years worlds. Or the late start time for that matter...
Todd and I are bringing ear plugs to the competition today. The stands are medal and when you are sitting watching wrestling the fans stomp and pound on the ground. The iranians fans are deafening! The venue has a pretty intimate feeling. They also have a youth camp happening in conjunction with the worlds. Many of the European teams have brought a bunch of high school aged wrestlers to watch and participate in this camp. I was looking at the training schedule in the Warm up area. Pretty cool many of the top coaches are doing sessions (people like John Smith, etc.). I wouldnt mind sneaking in to watch a session.
There has been no shortage of wrestling space. the training venue has 6 international sized mats, the warm up are has another 4 or 5, and then the competition is being held of 4 mats. Pretty impressive!

Wish us luck today!

Day one in Herning

2009-09-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

Well a lot has happened in the last 24hours. The worlds officially started today, not with a bang that we had hoped. All three canadian men lost their opening match today. All I want to say is the margin of victory (or defeat) in all the matches was very slim... I know the guys, and I know they are not happy. Anyways I hope everyone back home supports our team of guys and girls trying to get it done here at the Worlds for Canada.

The interesting thing about the worlds in there current format is everyday offers new hope, and new opportunity. As a group we need to learn from the challenges each group of athletes faced and find a way to win. If we get down, or defeatest after the first day it is gonna be a long week!

We have our first set of athletes weighing in tomorrow. Lindsay and Jessie are weighing in the morning. On the slate to compete is Saeed vs Egypt, Travis vs Mongolia, and Arjan vs Armenia.

Ok i am starting to go scatter brained like our sucked light weights (right now). Just kidding...

It has been a long day. I cant wait till tomorrow. Will try and get a little more behinds the scenes details for you.

Good night!

Mat work outs and killing time...

2009-09-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

We had an excellent workout this afternoon on the Mats. Light volume but great intensity, commitment and focus... We broke the work out into three short blocks of drilling. Offense on the feet, Counter offense (directing and reattacking), and straight defense. We then did some short live wrestling 5 x 1 minute. Our girls got a good chance to get there hearts pumpin, release some energy and feel the Denmark air in their lungs. The goal at this point is really getting everyone ready to step out on the mat with no doubts, ready to put 100% into their wrestling. Dont over think things, just go do the things you have already trained to do. Each athlete is a little different but at the end of the day your final few practices arent really about training, they are just about execution and refocusing. If things go great, perfect. If they arent, for what ever reason, you have to move on and realize the performance you put forth on the actual competition day is all we are working toward. Tonya wanted to do more drilling after our scrimmage, so I told her she had 5 additional minutes to drill, no more. She looked great, and at times you gotta haul the athletes off the mat and hold them back a bit.

The spirits of our group has been very good thus far. It is funny how when you are on the road so much together how you like to tease each other, debate things, and at times just drive each other nuts! Tonight we had the dumbest debate possible...We argued for an hour at least about what you call it when you text some one past tense... Do you say "I texted" so and so, or is it I "text" so and so. So far we have three people arguing for each side!!! Man we need to get a life! Even though I know I am right, I feel sorry for those, like Hinds who are so confused!

Other important happenings today... We FINALLY received our teams competition singlets for the Worlds! Each wrestler at the Worlds this year will actually not only have their countries initals on the back of their singlet, but also their last name (kinda like a hockey jersey). The front of the singlets also bear the flag of their country. The girls were super excited to finally get their new singlets delivered by asics. They look great, Thank goodness! This has been a huge headache for Tamara and the team in general! I am glad to see Asics has finally delivered, and everything looks good.

Well anyways, that is all for now. Competition starts tomorrow with our men! To look up results in real time go to the tournament website at www.fila-wrestling.com/herning09/
Talking to Justin Abdou today he thinks our guys are excited to get on the mats! The competition actually starts at 1pm which makes it a lot easier for us to watch some of the action! Lets hope for a great start to the week!

1st Morning a treat

2009-09-20T04:14:00.000-07:00

Nothing like a european style breakfast to start your day right. The great selection breads, meats, and cheese! Fresh veggies and fruits... I love mornings here. After Todd and I split our beds apart last night it was a good sleep in our small yet comfortable room.
Our set up here in Struer has proven to be better than originally thought. With the morning light came the realization that we are about a stones through from the water and a large marina. There is a grocery store across the parking lot from the hotel, and a great walking mall off of the back entrance to the hotel (very nice). We walked to the work out centre this morning which was about a block and a half from our hotel. The Struer fitness centre is really nice with lots of new cardio equipment, in a new clean building. Todd, Tonya, Justine and I jumped on a bunch of spin bikes and had a little work out this morning while Jessie and Lindsay hoped on the treadmills and went for a run in their gear. The only thing missing was a sauna, however there is a pool in town that has saunas as well. So really everything we need seems to be at our immediate disposal. We are gonna catch the bus this afternoon to get on the Mats.
One thing that is clearly different than North America is the level of activity in town on Sunday. Todd and I went for a big walk around town after our work out and barely saw a soul on the street. Everything is closed and nothing is happening today. The only places open is the gas station and a few pubs.

Our first set of men weighed in this morning. I stand corrected John, Haislan, Khetag (not Saeed) weighed in. John has Japan first match, Haislan has Turkey (but not the Olympic champion), and Khetag has Hungary. We will meet up with the group later and I will ask The men's coaches there thoughts leading into day one... Katie, and Ohenewa arrive later today to join our team ranks. I will post a few pictures later...
Thats all for now.

We have arrived...

2009-09-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

Greatings from Struer...
I know, i know, you are probably thinking I thought the Worlds were in Herning Denmark. Well... after a long day of travel we are tucking our selves into bed at the Grand Hotel in a little community called Struer. Actually a 45 minute drive from Herning... Our long day of travel included a long layover in Frankfurt Germany for our group, then we arrived into Billund Denmark and were promptly picked up and driven to Herning. Upon arriving we were faced with a number of positives, and not so positives about this years World Championships. On the positive side of things the actual tournament venue and set up seem to be excellent. Dave McKay was saying how nice the arena, Warm-up area, and training venue is at this years worlds. It should be excellent from a spectator perspective as well. Outside of the arena is the biggest Wrestling "tailgate party" you are ever going to find with tonnes of RV's set to pull in and stay for duration of the championships.
Now since the Worlds became a combined event in 2001 (Greco, Freestyle, and Women) each years Championships has been held in a Major Centre (like Sofia Bulgaria, Guangou China, Budapest Hungary, etc.). This years the championships are in Herning with a population somewhere around 50 000 people! What a difference from the major metropolis centres we have become accustom to. I was sitting next to Craig Seeker (Us Journalist) on the Drive from the airport and he was commenting about how the country side reminded him of Iowa. Wide open spaces and lots of corn fields, along with other agriculture. It was a very beautiful and relaxed country side.
We arrived to the accreditation centre at the competition venue... what a crazy, hectic setting! Thank goodness for John Dawson, our team leader, who had stood in line for 4 hours prior to our arrival to ensure or process would be fairly painless. So many different countries, all pushing and shoving to get to the front of a few lines. Its probably a good thing that I couldnt understand a lot of the things being said....! This is where we received the news that we would be staying in Struer. Our men's team who had arrived early in the week were staying in the host hotel immediately adjacent to the competition venue. As a small community Herning is lacking the big hotels able to accomodate the volume of people at an event like this. So we were told we would be staying (our women's team) in a near by town 45 minutes away! Seeing the challenges the hosting committee were obviously facing, and trying to be positive we made no big deal about our circumstances. After a dinner at the competition venue (which was quite decent), we headed out to the front to catch our bus to our new home. Our girls did a great job being patient and positive.. as we were forced to wait another extended amount of time until they found some transportation to take us to our hotel... One schedule said we were supposed to take a bus marked route 7, while another schedule said route 9. Ultimately we were driven in a van with no sign on it!
At the hotel, we had a quick meeting with our team, which at this point is Rushton, Bondy, Verbeek, and Bouchard. They were all in good spirits and we discussed the challenges we may face thru the week given our geographic location. Our girls are going to get up in the morning and go for a workout at the near by fitness centre. We will then take a bus (hopefully) back to Herning in the early afternoon and get a good Mat workout. Tonight Todd (Hinds) and I took a quick little walk and appraisal of Struer... It seems like a very quaint little danish town and i am sure our experience here, and the experience throughout the week will be as memorable as any thus far! We are looking forward to the arrival of the rest of our team soon and the competition around the corner. John, Saeed, and Haislan weigh-in tomorrow. Our girls cant wait for there turn! Lindsay Rushton was talking to me tonight and she told me she cant remember being so excited to get on the mat and compete...!

Anyways... Thats all from Denmark for now.
I will write again in the morning after a nuch needed nights sleep!
All the best from our team!

Webcasting

2009-09-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

For those of you hungry to watch some of the World Championships first hand, there is a post on themat.com regarding live webcasting of the tournament. Although I believe a lot of the coverage will likely focus on the US team. Details are on that website.

Welcome to Denmark! 2009 World Wrestling Championships

2009-09-15T05:49:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
Stealing the idea from our neighbors to the south, I thought i might be able to provide a bit of interesting insight to our experiences at the Senior World Championships this year in Herning Denmark. I am not a sports writer, but i will do what i can to share some of the sights and sounds at this years big event. Obviously, my primary focus will be on "Team Canada" and our performance at the event, but i will try and post an entry each day on the happenings in Herning. As the Worlds are about to begin I hope our supporters and Wrestling enthusiasts are as excited as i know our team is. Please check our Canadian Wrestling Website for updates as well, and the fastest way to get timely match results will likely be to look at the results on the Fila Herning 2009 website. Wish us Luck!!!