Cliff Keen Wrestling Club coach Andy Hrovat served as an assistant coach for the U.S. freestyle team at the World University Games, held July 11-12 in Kazan, Russia. Team USA earned a pair of bronze medals from David Taylor (74kg/163 pounds) and Tyrell Fortune (120kg/264 pounds). Hrovat recaps his experience:
I just arrived home from Russia, and I am still amazed how big of an event the World University Games are. As host country, Russia wanted to show the world that they are the best sporting nation in the world. The games included more than 10,000 athletes from 162 nations. This event is on par with the Olympic Games, and as a coach, I learned a lot about the logistical side of the sport. You don’t ever think about transportation, laundry and where you will get your food as an athlete; you only worry about yourself and getting prepared to do your job. But as a coach, you are in charge of everyone and everything. It’s eye opening. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to coach this team, and I will use it as a learning experience for my future coaching career.
Our team was filled with NCAA stars, and we all had very high expectations going into the tournament. Wrestling had not been included in the World University Games since 2000, and nobody would have guessed that the level of competition could rival that of the senior-level World Championships. Several countries in fact used their top senior-level athletes, and we could either complain about it or thank them for helping us out. Simply saying we had a team filled with NCAA stars is downplaying how great these kids are. We sent a team of wrestlers that will compete for many world and Olympic medals in the future, and I think this event was a great stepping stone for them. They were able to experience an overseas training camp — the first for most of them — and a top-level tournament all on one trip. All of these wrestlers are very smart and competitive, and I know they will use this experience to figure out how to win at the highest level. Now, the next time they make a world or Olympic team, they will know exactly how to prepare and get mentally ready to compete against the best.
I want to share a little story about Tyrell Fortune and how this trip helped him. I believe Tyrell is a top-10 heavyweight in the world right now. His only problem is that he has to compete against Tervel Dlagnev, who I believe is the best heavyweight in the world right now. Tyrell has every tool imaginable and is very mentally strong, so going into the tournament he believed he was going to win. He lost in the quarterfinals against a Ukrainian wrestler in a very close match and was actually just a few millimeters away from ending the match with a second three-point move. So, when he came back to the warm-up area after losing, he was a little down in the dumps. At that point, he didn’t even want to wrestle back, but he did, beating some tough wrestlers on his way to a bronze medal. When the day was over, he was proud of that bronze medal but hungry for more. The most inspiring thing about his performance was on the second day of the competition, he was helping mentally prepare the other athletes. He was giving them pep talks before matches, and when they lost, he was giving them some great advice on how to get their minds back in the tournament and prepare to wrestle back. He learned how to be a leader on this trip and used the lessons he learned just one day earlier to assist the others guys who were in the same position. I think this is just a small example of how important a trip like this can be for all the athletes that competed.
Simply saying that this trip was a good learning experience does not excuse how our team performed against some of the world’s best. Everyone knows they could have done better. Whether or not it will be a learning experience will rely on how each individual uses this trip to prepare for future events — myself included. I am excited for the future of USA Wrestling, and I still believe we as a country will win the World Championships as a team within the next three years. We currently have great senior-level athletes. We also have some very good young athletes pushing them and looking to replace them so they too can win world and Olympic titles.
