2010 World Championships

Coaches Apprentice Program (Day 8)

The Manchurian CAPPERs.

The Russians who run the Sports Centre must only own a 2-disc CD player that is set on repeat.  A 40-minute loop of Techno music played at volume 9 pounds out the beat over and over again.  Jamie Crossno’s theory behind the repetitive music is that we are being brainwashed.  Sometime in the future, we’ll all somehow hear the music again and, activated by some code word, we’ll all descend on Washington, D.C. where we’ll wake up, confused as to how we got there, and with an uneasy idea that we’ve done something terribly wrong.

Last Day on the Mats

Iranians in Moscow.  There must be a large Iranian community in Moscow because a group took up a large part of the stands next to where we were filming, waving Iranian flags, blowing small and large horns, singing songs, and rhythmically chanting prompted by a bearded man leading the cheers for the Iranian and the Russian wrestlers.

Knowledgeable Ears.  The crowd knows wrestling.  You can gauge a crowd’s knowledge by the per capita cauliflower ear ratio.  Kurt McHenry estimated the Moscow crowd’s ratio at 1.7:1.

The Opening Closing Ceremony.  They closed the World Championships by opening the last day of medal matches with traditional songs from six folk singers dressed in traditional garb – the women looked like gypsies and the men looked like Cossacks.  They danced to polka-like music, waved swords, threw their papakha hats into the air, and played an accordion.  It was festive, happy, brash music performed in bright costumes, and completely out of place.

Shawarma Trifecta.

We had to go back one more time.  The Eastern European burritos didn’t disappoint.  The poor owner probably beefed up his inventory of spicy chicken in the expectation of regular customers who showed up three days in a row around 5:00 p.m. each afternoon continuing to show up in the future.

Shoes on the Mat.

Matt Oney brought his wrestling shoes to the venue, put them on, and walked around.  Now he’ll always be able to say he wore those shoes on the mat at the 2010 World Championships in Moscow, Russia.

City in Black.

Black leather jackets abound in Moscow.  Black shoes, too.  And black pants of all descriptions.  With black t-shirts, black purses, black caps, black beards, you name it. If clothes didn’t come in black then 73.9% of Moscow would be naked.

Front Row Xenophobic Frustration.

For the finals on the last two days, many of the CAP coaches sat in the front row, almost as close to the championship mat as the high rollers and VIPS.  Other Americans sometimes wandered down to sit with us in the prime seats.

Maybe it was the lack of US medals and the quick exit by US athletes.  Maybe it was the inconstancy of the door guards and the inability to get back in where you just came out or, even stranger, the inability to get back out where you just came in.  Whatever it was, one of the Americans sitting with us in the front row for the finals (not a CAP coach) couldn’t keep his frustration in.

“I’m sick of these foreigners!”

“We’re the foreigners here,” said Kurt McHenry, laughing.

“Not to me!”

Flights Out. 

We check out tomorrow, busing to the airport and catching flights to New York or Atlanta, bringing to an end a week of watching great wrestling.