As most of y'all know, Patricia sat out this year's World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan. She had surgery on her knee in early September and is expected back on the mat before the new year. However, if you know Patricia, you know she is dead set on beating the most ambitious projections. And, as expected, she is on pace to reach her goals.
Surgery is not atypical in our business and knees tend to be the weak link in a wrestler's body. We both consider Patricia's position as not entirely unfortunate and we will not belabor the difficulties she must face and that I must try to help guide her through. Instead, the purpose of this thread is one of forward thinking. Both Patricia and I will post a few additions attached herein that may draw out our, I think, interesting thoughts about the next 10 or so months. Our optimism stems from the promise of one more chance to create that moment of perfection in the end. More later.
Stay tuned for future posts regarding my trip to Baku, and losing Hitomi Sakamoto.
-Levi
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Losing Hitomi...
The Japanese looked flat in Azerbaijan. Sure, the perennial favorites to win the team title in women's freestyle wrestling crowned four out of seven individual champions in Baku. And, yes, again, they ran away with the team title leaving Kazakstan, Ukraine, Canada, China, Russia, and the United States far behind in team points. Still, we are talking about a team that in 2006 medaled in every single weight class (including those they were supposedly "weak" in). The duplicated a feat only ever accomplished in one prior World Championship meet by walking away with seven medals in '06. They shattered the previous record for team points scored at a World Championship by also crowning five individual champions in Guangzhou in 2006. They didn't fare nearly as well in 2007. After winning the first four weight classes (Both Icho's, Sakamoto, and Yoshida), they went 0-fer in medal count in the final three weight classes, even failing to qualify their spot at heavyweight (top 8) for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
But to understand the extent to which the Japanese looked, well, vulnerable in Baku, you have to scrutinize their wins as well as their losses. It started in the second match of the women's tournament when Chiharu Icho began her title defense at 48kgs against a relatively weak opponent from Senegal. Now, there have been quite a few rumors flying out of Japan about trouble in this weight class surrounding Icho's injuries, infighting between the National Coaches and the Japanese Wrestling Federation involving both Chiharu and her younger sister Kaori, and, finally, the reasons for Icho's failure to make weight at the Asian Games earlier this year (which temporarily looked like it might cost the Japanese an entry at 48kgs in this year's World Championships). Littler Icho was indeed allowed to wrestle and was setup to wallop a few puds on her way to a showdown rematch of the '04 Olympic Finals with Ukraine's golden girl Irini Merleni. However, the conspicuous feature of Icho's road back to the finals of the World Championships was how hard she labored against the lineup of heavy underdogs she faced. Her go-to move, a driving double, was virtually non-existent or dysfunctional during the entire tournament. She shot it on Senegal and nearly caused an embarrassing spin behind score for the African off her own momentum. In truth, I saw Icho score only once in the tournament with her double, and that was against the USA's Stephanie Murata (who is more than just a little lead-footed). She didn't even fire the shot off in most matches. Icho's low point came in the 1/4 finals against the wrestler competing for Azerbaijan (who, in actuality, is Ukrainian but was transplanted by Merleni's return to the sport). In the quarters, Icho lost the first period to a wrestler who had, at that point in her career, failed to assert herself on the world stage. She very nearly lost the match and struggled mightily to best the younger upstart. Icho went on to beat Merleni in the finals and repeat as World Champion, but Merleni was not her old self and wrestled too tentatively to force the kind of win she did in Athens (perhaps I will write more later on how both Merleni and Icho wrestled not to lose in the ’07 finals in another post).
Japan stumbled elsewhere in the tournament as well. Historically unbeatable 55kg champ Saori Yoshida looked almost human as she dropped a period to Columbia's Renteria. Other examples existed. Seemingly across the board, where the Japanese won, they didn't look nearly as dominant as they have in the past.
The one exception to this critique, I think, was five-time World Champion Hitomi Sakamoto at 51 kg. She cruised through the tournament demonstrating her brutal efficiency time and again. When it seemed that she might get cornered by an opponent and begin to limp like her teammates, Sakamoto would power up and rattle off an impressive streak of scoring moves as if to say: "Here is what the Japanese wrestlers can do," and have done, too often in the past. And why not? This was likely Sakamoto's final appearance as a mainstay on the Japanese team. In the medal ceremony, as Hitomi cried enough to express all the happiness, pressure, and other emotions held back during a brilliant career, it became obvious to me that the break in her typical stoicism signaled that she was not planning another triumph in her competitive wrestling career as an athlete any time soon. With Japanese gold medals at both the weight above and below her, Sakamoto officially would have to miss representing her country next year in the summer Games. The coveted title of "Olympian" would again not be hers. More importantly, the decision was probably already made that she would retire if the Olympic dream was lost by events beyond her control in Baku.
...
I had come to Baku without Patricia and I thought I was prepared to do so. Injuries happen all the time, and I knew Patricia could dust herself off rather easily and put herself back in contention for an Olympic title in 2008. “There is no use in crying about it,” I said to myself. "So long as there are days ahead, then we must prepare for future victories as they will define us more than the missed opportunities of the past." Still, something welled up in me as I watched Sakamoto shed her tears atop the podium and stand overwhelmed as an admirable champion and worthy competitor. As I watcher her closely and pondered which emotions predominated for her when this accomplished warrior finally allowed herself to feel publicly, I realized that I couldn't escape my own undeniable cocktail of emotions brewed by the events in Baku.
A brief little history here: Patricia decided that she would return from retirement in late 2005-- which is to say that I probably had a hand in convincing her that she should prepare for one more go around in this sport in order to learn its greatest lessons (an achievement I believed she was poised to accomplish if she came back). I decided I should help her because, in part, I had gotten her into the challenge and I also wanted to test out my metal as a coach. Her comeback was relatively smooth as she mechanically marched her way back to the top spot in the United States at 51kgs the following spring. Then, our destiny, or so it seemed, grabbed us. Patricia faced an old nemesis and a far superior wrestler in the 2006 World Cup when she faced off against Sakamoto in Japan. I was hooked into the scene as Sakamoto made quick work of Patricia and the Japanese team sailed past us without much effort en route to the title. It seemed a perfect beginning to the kind of challenge that was big enough to justify Patricia's and my whole-hearted effort to orchestrate her comeback.
Sakamoto embodied the Japanese juggernaut that baffled all the other teams in all the other lands prior to 2007. She was fast, her technique was a virtual gold standard for all other lightweight lady wrestlers (with perhaps Yoshida being the exception here) to work toward, and she was confident in her efficient disposal of challenger after challenger. (She was forced to miss the 2004 Olympics due to a knee surgery not unlike Patricia's). As far as I know, she hadn't lost in any World Championship she had entered dating back to 2000 (where she beat Patricia convincingly in the first match they ever wrestled in the finals that year). Most importantly, she was more athletic and more disciplined than Patricia was on the mat-- and that made for a powerful combination and a seemingly insurmountable challenge for both Patricia and I (as the rest of the Japanese lightweights should have appeared to the rest of our US team). We, of course, embraced the challenge for better or for worse.
I, for one, dreamed and reworked strategies to defeat Hitomi Sakamoto constantly. While it was my job to make sure Patricia didn't focus too long on her opponents, I am sure that when she visualized her demon, it wore a Japanese singlet and moved with the precision that Patricia knew only too well. I made sure that we overhauled Patricia's old style completely to give her a better chance to stuff Sakamoto's relentless offense. We weren't quite ready to win our newly-defined battle by the end of 2006, but the signs that we were closing the gap surfaced (they wrestled again at the “07 World Championships and the annual NYAC tournament at 55kgs) and we felt like we could be ready to de-throne the champion for all the world to see in Baku in 2007.
No dice. This was to be OUR statement. A statement that was to say that THESE Japanese girls could be beaten and that they could be beat by hard work and superior thinking and will despite a deficit in experience and athleticism. And who better to do it? Patricia has been a leader on the US team since 2002. Japan's topple from the podium far above the rest of the female wrestling world is probably inevitable, but what were we as a program to do in the meantime? In the past few Jr. World Championships, Japan has looked borderline average. The investment they pushed into women's wrestling early is being matched by the investment in other countries and it shows in the more youthful competitors. After 2008, it is likely, those many-time-World-and-Olympic-Champions from Japan will likely retire and give up their advantages reaped from so much early investment (Sakamoto, both Icho's, Hamaguchi). However, Patricia and I both expressed to one another that waiting for a changing of the guard was unacceptable (this was the kind of attitude that made Patricia a ripe candidate to take on the Japanese challenge). I am sure some realists over here believed that other countries and the US program would have to wait for this younger batch of girls before we stopped taking our lumps as a country on the mat. Patricia and I saw it a little differently-- such great domination and the near foregone conclusion of Japanese supremacy to date provided the opportunity to assert ourselves by forcing a different ending in 2007 and 2008.
But time was, and is, running out. Some of the last few chances to test oneself against the greatest wrestlers this young sport has ever known expired in Baku with the waning month of September. In some weights, the Japanese puzzle has seemingly been solved. Bulgarian heavyweight Zlateva powered through a very tough draw to send a resounding statement that she will be the one to beat in China next year as she won her second straight World Title. Zlateva disposed of former World Champion (and Japanese) Kyoko Hamaguchi easily and should be a heavy favorite to do so again if these two paths cross in Beijing. Still, Hamaguchi is far from the best weapon in Japan's arsenal, and Japanese domination at heavyweight was always a little ridiculous. Recently, it has been the Japanese lightweights that have held a stranglehold on the women's wrestling world. It was precisely this fact that motivated Patricia and I to try to break-up the Japanese dynasty in what ways we could, just to see IF we could. For two years now, we have been pouring ourselves into this task. This is what we lost a little piece of in Baku as Hitomi rose again unopposed to the 51kg crown while Patricia was home rehab-ing her knee from surgery.
Good things happened in Baku for us. Murata, while not medaling, did manage to qualify the 48kg weight class for the United States such that a spot in the Beijing Olympics will be waiting for Patricia when she is ready to seize it. Chiharu Icho became the 48kg representative for Japan at next summer's Games (by virtue of her World Title). While she is a fine competitor and wrestler, she is not nearly as dangerous or as good as Sakamoto was at 51kgs. The entire field at 48kgs looked beatable and I certainly have collected enough taped footage of all the qualifiers to start in on our next task-- the pursuit of Olympic Gold. Certainly there is much left to accomplish for Patricia (and for me) and no time to pine for battles prepared for but never waged. Nonetheless, as I stood beneath Sakamoto and watched her exit the scene perhaps saddened by what turned out to be a mere formality of a title for her-- a relative wrestling wimper compared to the fights ahead for her teammates, I too was saddened. The drama and the opportunity to engage in a warrior's battle and show what Patricia and I had done was to be deferred, and, in part, lost forever when Hitomi walked away. Patricia will be back with all of her refinements in place and a new challenge will persist. For the possibilities of the future, I am grateful as I write this. On that day, however, I was overcome by what wasn't and what will probably never be.
-Levi
Post a Comment