NO TENSION AMONG WRESTLERS
Russian, Ukrainian grapplers shake hands, ignore political strife
Half a world away, the focus was on Ukrainians and Russians tensely trying to plot their futures with a controversial secession referendum and scenes of tanks in the streets of Crimea.
But here in a mostly forgotten arena — the Forum — where Jack Nicholson once sat courtside and Magic Johnson seemed like he could save a league and change the world with a smile, wrestlers from 10 nations tried to show a more peaceful way.
When Johnson held sway here, it was Showtime. Sunday was Throwtime, as the world’s top wrestlers displayed their moves in the Freestyle World Cup.
But after throwing and twisting their opponents into submission, the wrestlers shook hands and hugged. They even helped up injured opponents. It is their way. Ukraine vs. Russia? Wrestlers from those countries shook hands before their match.
Iran vs. the USA? Wrestlers from those countries talked about their friendly competition perhaps creating better relations between their nations.
“We’re not politicians. We’re not humanitarians. We’re wrestlers,” world and Olympic champion Jordan Burroughs, 25, of Camden, N.J., said after a victory against a Turk wrestler Sunday.
Burroughs’ comment was echoed over and over during a weekend of high-level wrestling before a sparse crowd of several thousand fans, many of them Southern Californians of Iranian descent who made a lot of noise in support of the No. 1-ranked Iranian team.
The pro-Iran crowd was ecstatic Sunday night when the Iranian wrestlers beat Russia 6-2 to win the championship.
Earlier, the USA beat Ukraine 7-1 for third place.
Though they kept score and gave out medals, this was not an event marked by extreme nationalism. On the contrary, it was more about the brotherhood of wrestling. After all, it was these athletes’ sense of unity and shared passion that helped wrestling grapple its way back into the Olympic program and perhaps show what can be accomplished when people move across borders and work together toward a common goal.
Bob Condron, a retired U.S. Olympic Committee media officer, saw this up close when he was hired last year by the international wrestling federation (FILA) to handle media for a four-month campaign to persuade the International Olympic Committee to reinstate wrestling for the 2020 and 2024 Olympics.
In September, beating out seven other aspiring Olympic sports, wrestling won IOC approval.
“The passion of this sport came out last year,” Condron said. “Everybody in wrestling bonded together and came out fighting. It was like war was declared on their souls. There are 177 national wrestling federations, and all of them were thinking about one thing: getting back in the Olympics.”
Condron saw that unity again in Inglewood over the weekend.
“You look in front of you, and you see the wrestlers fighting on the mats,” he said. “On the other side of that curtain, on the workout mat, you see Russians, Ukrainians, Iranians, Americans talking, taking pictures, shaking hands.
“What I’ve learned is that wrestlers are a special breed. Yesterday leaders of the Ukraine and Russia teams were having dinner together. They probably had a beer afterward. They’re friends. They don’t have problems in terms of politics or what’s on a map. This is totally about sports.”
Saturday, in the two matches involving the most geopolitical ramifications, Russia beat Ukraine 7-1 and Iran beat the USA 5-3. Good sportsmanship reigned.
“Hopefully, if it’s a great event, it can ease problems between the two countries,” Iranian wrestler Masoud Esmailpoor Jouybari said.
Russia’s team leader, Christakis Alexandridis, well aware of the tensions at home between his country and Ukraine, said the athletes and coaches here put all of that aside.
He called it a special moment when the Ukrainian and Russian wrestlers shook hands before their match.
“We embrace each other,” he said. “There is politics everywhere, every day. For us, this is about wrestling. This is about our sport. We are a family. We are friends. We are in Los Angeles. I love it.”