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I wasn't as aggressive as I could have been: Snyder after beating Ghasempour

Thursday, December 15, 2022 - 16:56 By Vinay Siwach

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CORALVILLE, Iowa (December 15) -- Kyle SNYDER (USA) has been one of the most dominant wrestlers of his weight class 97kg for more than half a decade now. And barring a couple of wrestlers, few have troubled him since he won his first World Championships at home turf at the 2015 Las Vegas World Championships.

When the World Cup in Iowa presented another opportunity to compete in front of his home crowd, Snyder promptly grabbed the opportunity.

As the leader of the USA team, Snyder led the hosts to a thrilling win over Iran as it captured its 15th World Cup on Sunday with a 6-4 win over its arch-rivals. It was Snyder who won the sixth bout and sealed the deal for Iran.

For the last four years, Iran has bet upon Mohammadhossein MOHAMMADIAN (IRI) as its mainstay at 97kg. But with medalless performances at the Tokyo Olympics and Belgrade World Championships, it is left to ponder on other options.

U23 world champion Amirali AZARPIRA (IRI) was selected for the World Cup and he did well to beat the world silver medalist Batyrbek TSAKULOV (UWW) in the group stages. However, Iran decided to bump the two-time world champion at 92kg Kamran GHASEMPOUR (IRI) at 97kg for the final against the USA.

It did not take Snyder by surprise. He was actually pleased that Ghasempour decided to jump up for the dual and gave fans a contest.

"He [Ghasempour] weighed in at 92kg," Snyder said. "I thought he might wrestle [at 97kg]. Maybe it's better for the dual. It was cool that he came up."

The Rio Olympic champion, however, did not let Ghasempour settle for six minutes. From the first whistle, it was Snyder who dominated the bout, pressured Ghasempour and ultimately won 5-0.

Part of his strategy was to take Ghasempour's game to him and wrestle as hard as possible.

"Just wrestling hard," Snyder said. "I know he [Ghasempour] wrestles hard and I have seen him wrestle. I knew how to be aggressive, take his game to him."

Ghasempour did get to Snyder's legs a few times but failed to convert any of the attacks. With the weight difference and Snyder's heavy wrestling, Ghasempour felt the heat and failed to match the pace of the bout.

Snyder, on the other hand, knew from the beginning that Ghasempour will not be able to withstand the pressure despite Snyder not being as aggressive as he could have been. Snyder said that he liked the bout as it was on his home turf against a good wrestler who stopped him from winning 10-0.

"My number one option is 10-zip but then the number two option is let me be the closer," he said. "I always like to wrestle good wrestlers. I just love to compete and am ready to go. Especially on the home turf, I am always going to be here. [In the bout], I felt I was in good control from the beginning even though I was winning by a point. I wasn't as aggressive as I could have been."

Iran will now have to rethink its strategy of promoting Ghasempour to 97kg. With the 2024 Paris Olympics quotas available at the 2023 World Championships, it will have to quickly find a way to break the drought at 97kg.

Snyder won the World Championships and remained unbeaten at the World Cup but believes that the 97kg weight class will be an interesting one going into Paris Olympics.

"We got a lot of good guys up there [97kg]," he said. "Him [Mohammadian], a bunch of other dudes so you don't know how it's going to work out."

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Wiebe inspires next gen at UWW-IIS camp in India

Saturday, February 15, 2025 - 08:21 By Vinay Siwach

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KARNATAKA, India (February 15) -- Erica WIEBE (CAN), the 2016 Rio Olympic champion, usually doesn't take it around but for her India trip, she made sure to pack her gold medal from Rio.

Call it luck, the gold medal turned out to be the highlight of her trip.

In India for a masterclass at the international women's wrestling camp organized by the Inspire Institute of Sport and United World Wrestling, Wiebe got mobbed by 50 young wrestlers as she showed them her medal. Wrestlers from Jordan, Estonia, South Africa, Mauritius, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and hosts India, all part of the camp, wanted to touch it, feel it and may be keep it.

"To see the looks on their faces and in their bodies responding to what it felt like to hold the kind of weight of your dream in your hand, I got emotional with them," Wiebe says. "It was so surreal for me to share the medal with the athletes because it brought me back to where I was at that time, and how it felt like winning an Olympic gold medal was just like this impossible dream that would never happen. It's really important for me to come here and do things like this to remind these women that, these crazy, unimaginable things are real. They can happen and to encourage them to continue to dream big."

No wrestler could walk away without a photo. A few even got emotional as they took the medal in their hands.

"God, I don't know how many times I have dreamt about that in the night," U17 world bronze medalist Lisette BOTTKER (EST) says. "When I got the medal on my hands, I was also trying not to cry but the feeling is awesome."

Maya QUTAISHAT (JOR) adds, "It seemed like the dreams of most of us wrestlers in front of us. Like getting the Olympic gold medal."

UWW and IIS organized the camp for wrestlers from around the world from January 15 to 31. It was hosted by IIS at it's world class facility in Vijayanagar, a township in Ballari district of north Karnataka, India.

Wiebe held a masterclass for the wrestlers along with training sessions with IIS head coach Amir TAVOKKALIAN, a former world silver medalist and Asian champion.

"It's a really amazing development opportunity for a young wrestlers from all around the world," Wiebe said. "There's several nations here, and it's so incredible to see the level of talent and passion of these young athletes. At the camp this week, we've had a number of sessions kind of leveraging different unique styles, having the different countries lead different warmups. We're here at the Inspire Institute of Sport which is a phenomenal world class facility. We don't have anything like this in Canada, there's very few facilities like this in the world. It's really exciting to see that India has this.

"Not only that, they have this for their athletes training, but they've invited many countries around the world to share in this moment and to leverage the resources that are available here on this site."

IIS President Manisha MALHOTRA also visited the camp and threw some light on the partnership with UWW to grow the sport.

"We're very passionate about the sport from an Indian ecosystem point of view," Malhotra said. "But what we realized is that, we need to start looking outside India to bring in expertise, look in partnerships. With that in mind, I think there was no better partner than UWW.

"They’ve done a phenomenal job with wrestling worldwide and growing the sport very well. The idea was to have a very good mix of people, whether they are from a very developed wrestling nation or from an underdeveloped wrestling nation, it needs to be a common platform where people can extract some sort of benefit for everybody. That was the main premise with what we worked with."

Apart from the training, wrestlers at the camp used the high performance center at IIS and indulged in sightseeing.

"Training here is very strong. We come out of the mat sweating a lot, and it's very tough," Qutaishat said, "The girls here are very high level. When I wrestle them, I learn a lot of techniques and so many things that I usually don't see back in my country. But I get to explore more as I go out to the camps."

Wiebe had an advice for all wrestlers, especially coming from smaller countries to the development camps.

"I told the athletes the goals are: to have fun, and to get better," Wiebe said. "And how do you do that? You find strength on the edge of failure. You have to put yourself on the line. Wrestling is not easy. You see it on the athletes bodies. They're pushing themselves to their limits, physically and mentally. They are tired. I remember being that way as an athlete. You always have to find another level to yourself."