BAC

J'Den is an athletic specimen, no doubt. But to me, that's why he's a good fit for this job, where he'll be coaching other guys with superior athleticism. He can help athletes learn how to use it, as he did. You don't get to be a multi-time world champ on athleticism alone. Nor do I think J'Den relied on his athleticism any more than our other top guys, or is even a better athlete than them. Look at our Olympic team. Lee, Zain, Dake, Brooks, Kyle, Mason... all exceptional athletic specimens. I also don't see how you can criticize the quality of his offense, as his technique is pristine and he had an extremely high conversion rate. It's true that he didn't put as many points on the board as other top guys, but I think that's because he knew he didn't need to, since his defense is so good -- and the name of the game is to score more than your opponent. Those are valuable lessons at the international level. I'd be more inclined to agree if he were being brought in as a high school coach or lower-tier college coach, as I have no doubt it can be tough to teach how to make a technique work to one who lacks your athleticism. Anyway, I guess we'll see, but I'm glad to see him on board.

Shock to me too. I wonder how the other Russians see it? Are they like, "you traitor"? Or more like, "damn that took balls, better watch your back"? I'm assuming the latter.

Seems like a really good grab for USA Wrestling: https://www.themat.com/news/2024/july/09/j-den-cox-named-national-freestyle-development-and-resident-coach-for-usa-wrestling Haven't heard anything about his coaching abilities but it always seemed to me he'd be very good at it... very talented, likeable and a very smart guy.

That sounds like a rhetorical question, but if its a real one, the answer is I don't know. Do you? But if you you're suggesting he intends to go beyond Ukraine to Eastern Europe (e.g. Hungary, Poland, Romania etc), no, I don't think that happens. That's NATO territory and nothing I've read suggests he is either that stupid or that conquering the world is Putin's goal. That isn't to say he doesn't have grander ambitions, but I can't say I'm as sure about what his goals are as some others seem to be. Some say he's trying to rebuild the Soviet empire, but his actions suggest its a lesser version of that, i.e. more about reclaiming areas that he thinks are ethnically and historically "Russian." And I would imagine there's a corollary goal of claiming areas that would put Russia in a position of greater strength relative to NATO. My guess is he's looking to wait out the election, confident Trump will force Ukraine to cede the Ukranian land currently occupied by Russia, and gear up to make another run at the rest of Ukraine in several years when the political climate is right. But I also suspect Putin is weighing whether, if Trump wins, he should seize the moment to try to take the rest of Ukraine. I think he might, if he is convinced Trump will stand by. I'm no foreign policy expert though, and I'm sure there's a lot I don't know here.

A few thoughts. First, I feel bad for the AIN athletes for Russia. Earl's article on the front page says that the boycott was a "unanimous vote" and that the invited athletes participated in it. But the time for the individual athletes to make that decision was two weeks ago. Several declined (mostly Belorussian, and one or two Russian), and the other 10 said yes. So basically all 10 of these athletes wanted to go, and now, obviously not wanting to spend the rest of their life in a Siberian labor camp, decided to "reconsider." Second, it isn't surprising. It never happened before because the AIN process had always been a rubber stamp. But now that the IOC actually decided to give a crap, and affirmatively refuse invites to people who are actively cheering on Russia's land-grabbing invasion, it creates a scenario where only athletes who steadfastly refuse to support their own government can participate. And if you're Putin, that's just not tenable. You can't have athletes actively trying to dissociate themselves from you. Better to ban them from going at all, lest it spark dissent against the warmongering regime. Third, all of this tells me the IOC, for once, got it right. Prior "bans" have been a JOKE, with there always being a de facto Russian team there, praising Putin as Putin praises them back. The AIN process was always supposed to be about the rights of the individual athletes, not Russia's rights, but Russia basically got to have a team in every way except in name. But done right, the AIN process can actually do some social good by incentivizing change. So while the boycott sucks for the AIN wrestlers, it tells them: either (a) stay in your country and cheerlead for its bad actions, and lose your right to compete, or (b) stay in your country and don't cheerlead, but realize your country may *still* not let you compete, incentivizing you and your supports to advocate for change in your country's behavior, or (c) find a better country, and compete there. Fourth, the question remains whether AIN selections will remain as rigorous for future UWW events. After all, many of these Russian athletes cleared the AIN hurdle for 2023 Worlds. What changed? Will UWW, when not being glared at by IOC, continue with its prior weak approval process, or will it have teeth? Does Sadulaev make a sudden return in 2025? Only if it has teeth going forward can the new AIN process have any effect. (My own guess is Trump wins in November, immediately cease all support for Ukraine, Ukraine is forced to capitulate and cede land, the war ends, the ban ends.) Fifth, all that said, it sucks we won't get to see the US wrestlers compete with Russia's best.

LOL. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying, I think we should pass a law forbidding anyone from saying anything negative about a wrestling team that loses, and I think Bo should have to give participation ribbons to all the schools he says no to. I think maybe your MAGA hat is on a little too tight, as you don't seem to realize there's a difference between being honest and open about who the best and worst teams are, as opposed to singling out and highlighting who the worst are for no beneficial or constructive reason. Its just poor taste. Hey I have an idea. How about colleges, when doing their recruiting, don't go after the kids they don't like. Instead, each week, they should publish a list of the wrestlers they definitely do NOT want on their team, until there's just a handful left. Great idea, right? Then at least that fat JV heavyweight son of yours will know right away that Penn State doesn't want him!

The whole thing has a LeBron-taking-his-talents-to-Miami feel to it. Just rubbing salt in the wound of every school he's saying no to, and doing a de facto ranking of D1 schools from worst-to-best while he's at it. I know it isn't his intent and I like Bo, but someone needs to talk to this kid and help him understand how disrespectful this comes off. That said, the Gardner-Webb coach is one of my new favorite humans. Aces.

So I guess they didn't allow any substitutions, since it was recently reported that Bey was now eligible. Chamizo is now in too. This was the right call by the IOC. I assume that's also why some Russian/Belarusians athletes refuses the invite? Some sort of protest? Mostly Belarusian it looks like. As it is, the present status is that only 10 of the 26 AINs put forth will be competing. That's remarkable. And it could be very harmful if not devastating to the Russian wrestling program, which has been struggling to keep their best athletes from defecting. The loyalists will stick around, but they're also the ones most apt to be spotted in some pro-Putin parade and lose their AIN status. My guess is a most of the AIN athletes will appeal their exclusion and some will win, so we'll see a few of these folks back in. But personally I think the AIN has been a rubber-stamp for far too long, and I'm glad to see the IOC putting some teeth in their review. Gratz to Bey. Most exciting Greco wrestler left after Hancock bailed, and good to have him in the Games.

The way Lewis just fed Brands his hips...

All fair points, WKN.

The higher number of participants in swimming may move the needle slightly vs wrestling, but not all that much, since participation doesn't translate into viewership. I wrestled as a kid too, but can imagine nothing more dull than turning on the TV to watch a swim meet. No one's turning on the TV to watch the Colorado vs. Oklahoma State men's swim meet, nor is any network running out to buy the rights to the event. If some college kid broke the world record in the 1600 meter backstroke, would you watch the youtube video of it? No, you would not. You would have zero appreciation of or excitement in what you're watching. Gymnastics is different. It is objectively fun to watch. It doesn't take any special skill or knowledge of the rules to appreciate the amazing athletic feats you are seeing. Just like people pay big bucks to go to a Cirque de Solail, or take their kids to the Big Top Circus. Dual meets are all over the TV, and youtube videos of Simone Biles getting a 10 get a million views in no time.

I like swimming too, but can I confess that what you wrote here, while 100% true, makes me a bit salty? If you ask your average American to name the "greatest US Olympian ever," or lets say the top 5 greatest US Olympians, there's a good chance 3 of the 5 would be the swimmers you named. But are they really the greatest? Or are they just counting up the number of medals, which favors swimming because it is the ONLY Olympic sport where you can run up a huge medal count? Sorry, I'm not convinced Mark Spitz is any better an Olympian than, say, John Smith. I don't think 9 golds over two Olympics in a sport where the same skill set enables you to compete in a bunch of highly-similar events, is necessarily better than getting gold in 2 different Olympics in the only event in which he could reasonably hope to qualify. Lets say hypothetically the IOC made 2 rule changes: 1. In swimming, each swimmer on your team can compete only in one event. If you're good at the breast stroke, you don't get to stack up medals by competing in 2 different breast stroke events plus 2 different relays. Just one. 2. In wrestling, they have freestyle, Greco, beach wrestling, Sambo and grappling (5 styles), and to keep the numbers down, each country must have only ONE wrestler competing at a given weight class -- in other words, the same 57kg wrestler for the US also competes in 57kg Greco and 57kg Beach and so on. Just like that, you'd see a huge turn in popularity. No swimmer would win more than one medal, and they'd only be on TV for that one day their event is on. But wrestlers would be competing over several days in their various activities, and the best could finish with 3 or 4 different medals. Advertisers would be tripping over each other to sponsor those athletes, because now suddenly they're the best marketing investment.

That's small part of it but not the main thing. I mean sure, a race to the finish line has an ease of simplicity to it. But if that were enough to draw a crowd, people would be lining up at swim meets around the country to watch the finish line. They don't. Same with track, another race to the finish line (except on land) -- immensely popular in Olympic years, but which no one in their right mind would watch voluntarily outside of an Olympic broadcast. The real difference is volume. There's just so dang much of it, which manifests itself in three ways: 1. There's 35 total swimming events spread out across the whole Olympics. It spans the entirety of the Games, from start to finish. (Again, similar to track.) 2. Because there's so much, the top individual athletes compete over a period of 7-10 days, not just 1 or 2, capturing eyes for a longer period of time. 3. Because the sport's top athletes typically compete in a multitude of events over a period of time, there's the chance for a hoard of medals. Meanwhile wrestling occupies just a few days of the Olympic program. The individual athletes are usually on the mat for just 1-2 days. And given the rarity of dual Greco-freestyle competitors, the max number of medals is one. Why does that matter so much? Money. Olympic networks and their sponsors are companies paying many tens of millions of dollars to finance the broadcast, and it only pays off if there's a LOT of viewers. And you only get viewers if people care enough to watch. But no one cares about most Olympic sports, so the network and their advertisers need to make people care, by hyping up the event and creating heroes. That means (1) pouring money into the sports that will give them the biggest financial return, and (2) pouring money into the individual athletes who will get them the biggest return. Swimming (and track) fares well on both those criteria. As sports, they have SO many events that they will occupy SO much airtime, so advertisers will invest. And since the top individual swimmers will be on the screen for over a week, not just a day or two, and have the chance to grab several medals, that makes them ideal heroes to create. Wrestling? Not so much. It occupies such a small role in the Olympics, and is over in just a few days, that an investment by advertisers just won't yield much return. Same with its athletes: no matter how charismatic or fun to watch Jordan Burroughs can be, he's still only on the TV for 1-2 days max, and he's still going to max out at 1 gold medal. Even if JB is a better athlete than Katie Ledecky, how many containers of Tide are you going to sell with JB as your spokesman if he's only on TV for a 24-hour blip with a lone medal, compared to Ledecky who's on for a week and a half and has amasses a neckful of gold over multiple events? Because after all, the question isn't "What is swimming doing that wrestling is not?". Since the answer to THAT question is "nothing." Swimming isn't marketing anything. You haven't heard of Katie Ledecky because of anything USA Swimming did. Rather, the REAL question is, why are networks and advertisers choosing to invest in swimming and swimmers, and not wrestling and wrestlers? And that's the real answer: volume. They and their athletes are on TV longer, and their potential for multiple medals creates makes for a more marketable hero.

Deep down, much as you may loathe them, *everyone* wants to see the Ferraris back in action, especially AJ, and ideally all on the same team. The sheer spectacle of it will be must-watch TV. I was really hoping it'd be Iowa since they're so fun to root against anyway, but I'll settle for the Badgers.

Shout out to Josh Lambrecht for agreeing to be interviewed. Even years later, it can't be an easy thing to talk about, but he does so honestly and graciously. Kinda sucks it threw him off his life plan for a while, but he seems like he is doing well now. Heck of a wrestler... 3x AA, 1x runner up, most would kill to have that kind of resume.