Bill Farrell, Vince Zuaro and myself made the long journey to Guanzhou, China for the annual Freestyle, Greco Roman and Women's World Championships. Guangzhou, a city of 11 million people and a province the size of Long Island has a population of 77 million people.

The city was bustling with new high rise hotels and apartments being built throughout the city. The flight was 15 hours long from Los Angeles. Each of us flew at different times and did not meet up until we arrived in China. Bill Farrell and Ron Pineda visited Hong Kong prior to the Championships..

The food was not high standards and on several occasions unbearable. Stan Dziedzic invited us out to dinner at a Five Star Hotel as big as Yankee Stadium. There was an Italian Restaurant inside and the meal was excellent for a change.

The accommodations at the Mandarin Hotel for the USA Wrestling group was very nice but again, the food was not first rate. We had a trip up the Yantzee River one evening and saw all the sites. The Chinese like a lot of lights and it was very nice with a tour guide providing information and propaganda from the Communist point of view, just like the New York Times.

First up was the Greco Roman Championships where the USA team wrestling exceptionally well. Joe Warren of the New York AC became only the fifth U.S. Greco-Roman wrestler to win a World title, with a victory at 60 kg/132 lbs. at the World Wrestling Championships in China on September 25. Warren beat a World gold, silver and bronze medalist prior to the finals, where he defeated David Bedinadze of Georgia.. He believed and demonstrated that he would win the World Championships by making the commitment along with the entire Greco team to live and train in Colorado Springs. Lindsay Durlacher won a Bronze Medal and defeated some past world medalists and will win a world championships before he is finished competing.

The USA team finished in 3rd place and were winning throughout the tournament. They needed to have 1 win from Dremiel Beyer’s, a former World Champion on the final day of the tournament. If he had beaten the Turk in the Quarter Finals, the USA Team would have won the team championships as it would have guaranteed enough team points no matter in what final position he placed.

Justin Ruiz, a former Bronze medalist lost early on and did not score any place points. Justin could not get it going and considering that he was a Bronze Medal winner last year hurt our team chances by not scoring in the top ten.

In the Freestyle, Andy Hrovath lost in the first round to the eventual Bronze Medal winner. He wrestled very well losing a tiebreaker in the first round and was winning the second round before yielding points in a scramble at the end of the period.

Donnie Pritzlaff wrestled very well and wrestled some of the top wrestlers in the World. He strongest suit is his competitiveness and has a great re-shot off his counters. He was hitting his swing single scoring on everyone and hos only loss was in a very close match. He came back for the Bronze. The Russian, Satiev, had a bad rib and lost very early along with their other World Champion, Muertzaliev with no team points from those two weight classes. They came back the next day winning with Gatsalov winning a gold and Kourmagodev a silver to win the team title again.

In the women’s competition, Mary Kelly in her first international competition won her first match and lost the second at the end of the last period. She was very competitive and with more international experience will be a medal winner someday. Kristie Marano won her 8th International Medal by winning the Bronze Medal losing to a World Champion from Japan. Japan won 5 Gold Medals out of 7 weight classes and the rest of the world in women’s wrestling is improving rapidly. The USA finished a disappointing 6th place and appeared to lack the “passion” to win at the fast competitive World level.

What separates many great athletes at the World Level is their dedication and “passion’ to training. Many former champions from the USA all had to make commitments that many people were incapable of doing in their personal and business lives.

Many of these athletes placed their careers on hold, living slightly above the poverty line for a dream that very few people in America even care about, competing for a World or Olympic Medal.

To have these great athletes in competition half way across the world with less than 35 USA fans in attendance is embarrassing. One of the reason the same small group attend every World or Olympic Championships is to honor these young men and women who give so much and receive so little even after they win.

FILA has announced that the 2007 World Championships will be held in Baku, Azerbaijani. The last time I was there was in 1986 for a Dual Meet with the Soviet Union after the Tbilisi Tournament. The Hotel we stayed was not a five star hotel but the Prime Minster has promised FILA that the event would be safe and first class.

We know that communist never lie! See you in BAKU…

Next-up- November 17-19 – New York Athletic Club Holiday at New York, N.Y.