Lee U-Wen
u-wen@mediacorp.com.sg

WITH 3-on-3 basketball and even beach wrestling potentially on the programme, the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in 2010, for athletes aged 14 to 18, is shaping up to be more than just a mini-version of the Summer Olympics.

The menu of 26 sports will be part of an attempt to better “interest and appeal” to youth, said Singapore’s International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board member Ng Ser Miang. The Republic is hoping to host the historic event.

Take wrestling, for instance. In addition to conventional indoor events, the plan is to have an outdoor beach-wrestling version, too. As for basketball, different formats may be tried — such as having teams of three, as opposed to five, battle it out and playing on a half-court only. And sailing will likely see a new youth class of boats used that will suit the abilities of the young athletes.

Mr Ng revealed the IOC’s plans to Today on the sidelines of a press conference held at the Singapore Sports School yesterday to rally support for the Singapore bid, which was submitted to the IOC in August.

On Thursday, October 25, one of the all-time greats in amateur wrestling and coaching celebrates his 59th birthday…

Happy Birthday,
Dan Gable!

If you see Daniel Mack Gable, wish him a happy birthday!

by Matt Culbertson
published on Friday, October 19, 2007

STING LIKE A BEE: Christian Grosinsky, 25, of Tempe practices a punch sequence with ASU nursing graduate Lars Havens at the Student Recreation Complex. Pankration is a form of mixed martial arts that includes wrestling, kickboxing and other forms of fighting.

“Where else can you choke your professor, slap an attorney, punch your boss or in one case kick a politician without getting into trouble?”

For Jeff Funicello, the mixed martial arts coach who posed the question, ASU Pankration is the safe and legal way for ASU students to fulfill that fantasy and train to compete in martial arts.

Four times a week, a group of mostly ASU undergraduate students meet in the Student Recreation Complex to train in mixed martial art disciplines nearly 3,000 years old, called pankration.

Funicello, a 17-year veteran of the sport, said about half of the team competes in competitions ranging from local events to international bouts.

“Where else can a Christian fight a Muslim, or a Hindu fight a Jew, and walk away good friends?” Funicello said in an e-mail about pankration.

By Karina Otrokhova

The Oregon State wrestling team is participating in challenging outdoor strength training to improve physically and mentally and prepare for the upcoming 2007-08 season.

Beavers head coach, Jim Zalesky, sees overall concentration and strength as a vital part of the wrestlers”‘ success throughout the season. Therefore he has introduced a new type of strength training to his team members to improve the different types of endurance required for wrestling, targeting the player”’s hip and form strengths as well as their grip and mental force.

“This is tough for everyone,” Zalesky said. “It”’s just a little extra, a little edge. They”‘re still strength training, just outside where the environment is different. It”’s meant to be tough on them and build up their overall strength.”

The new work out plan consists of five different stations with challenges in correlation to a move or technique exercised in wresting. The first task is a hose pull, which has the players pulling a water hose connected to a weight. The players found this station the most challenging due to the fact that the weight sunk into the wet ground and it was difficult to keep a good grip of the wet hose.

PHILADELPHIA - The University of Pennsylvania wrestling program has announced that it will hold its annual wrestle-offs and coaches clinic on Sunday, Nov. 4 at The Palestra.

The coaching clinic will be headed by Penn head coach Zeke Jones, who also served as the 2004 U.S. Olympic Freestyle coach; assistant coach Rob Eiter, who was a 2007 Junior World Championships coach as well as a 1996 Olympian; and U.S. Olympic and NCAA Championship head coach Bobby Douglas.

Penn’s first set of wrestle-offs will take place at noon, with the second session going off at 3:30 p.m.

A registration form is listed below for this event.

Penn Wrestling Coaches Clinic Registration Form

University of Michigan Sports Information

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — University of Michigan wrestling head coach Joe McFarland announced Monday (Oct. 8th) the addition of Mark Churella Sr. to the coaching staff. Churella, a three-time NCAA champion and National Wrestling Hall of Fame member, will serve at the Wolverines’ volunteer coach during the 2007-08 season.
Mark Churella Sr. photo
Churella

“Everybody affiliated with Michigan wrestling is excited to have Mark back in the program,” said McFarland. “I think Mark will able to help us in certain areas where we have recently been deficient. He understands the technical aspect of wrestling and the mental preparation it requires better than anyone I know. He was one of my coaches during my senior year at Michigan, so I personally know what a benefit he will be to our current guys.”

It will be Churella’s second stint with the Wolverine wrestling staff after previously serving three seasons as a U-M graduate assistant coach (1985-87). Churella also was head coach at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (1979-84) before the Rebels dropped their wrestling program. While at UNLV, he inaugurated the Las Vegas Collegiate Invitational Tournament (now the Cliff Keen Invitational), which remains one of wrestling’s most prestigious regular-season events.

Heavyweight champion Randy Couture has severed ties with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, his Las Vegas spokesman said on Thursday.

Spokesman Sean O’Heir of Couture’s Xtreme Couture MMA said Thursday that the UFC Hall of Famer had vacated his championship and resigned as an analyst on UFC television broadcasts.

O’Heir said Couture was hoping for a fight to be made against Fedor Emelianenko, who is the top-ranked mixed martial artist in the Yahoo! Sports poll. Reports surfaced Tuesday that Emelianenko had signed with a new promoter, M-1.

“He was disappointed when he couldn’t get a fight with Fedor,” O’Heir said. “That would have been his legacy fight.”

The story was first reported by Brian Knapp of The Fight Network, which has a business relationship with Couture. Loretta Hunt, its managing editor of MMA news content, is writing Couture’s biography, and Couture frequently appears on the network.

UFC president Dana White released a statement Thursday in which he said he was not surprised by Couture’s announcement.

He left the door open for Couture to fight again in the UFC as he remains under contract.

By Kyle Klingman
DGIWIM

Six new legends of wrestling will enter the Glen Brand Wrestling Hall of Fame on April 19, 2008. It will be the seventh class to go into the hall.

The group includes two men who each won a pair of NCAA championships (Mike Natvig of Army by way of Decorah and Tim Krieger of Iowa State), another NCAA champion who became a mixed martial arts star (Mike Van Arsdale of Iowa State), an NCAA champion who is now a Big Ten coach (Duane Goldman of Iowa) and two of the most respected coaches in Iowa history (Chuck Patten and Dan Mashek, both of UNI).

The inductions will be held 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 19, in the Glen Brand Wrestling Hall of Fame inside the Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Waterloo. It is part of a two-day weekend that includes the Dan Gable Coaching Clinic on Friday and Saturday, with some of the top coaches in the country holding sessions.

Mike Natvig won two NCAA championships for the West Point team, capturing titles at 147 pounds in both 1962 and ‘63. He graduated with an overall record of 47-7-1 and is considered the most successful wrestler in the history of West Point. He also attended the University of Iowa prior to attending West Point.

Posted at the Wrestling Talk forum…

Olympic gold medalist and professional wrestling star Kurt Angle was charged Friday with driving under the influence.

Moon Township police said they received a call from a motorist at 1:49 p.m. complaining that someone driving a white Cadillac nearly struck his vehicle in a restaurant parking lot.

The motorist, who gave police the vehicle’s license plate number, also said the Cadillac was driving erratically on Beaver Grade Road and almost hit a traffic sign. Police tracked the Cadillac to Angle’s residence, which they did not identify.

Angle, 38, who has admitted an addiction to painkillers, told police he had been at the restaurant and driven home. He failed a sobriety test but refused a blood test. He was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol or a controlled substance and careless driving. He was released to appear in court at a later date.

Angle, a Mount Lebanon native, is the current Total Nonstop Action Wrestling world champion. He could not be reached for comment.

A standout athlete at Mount Lebanon High School, Angle was a two-time NCAA Division 1 wrestling champion at Clarion University of Pennsylvania. He also won a gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

Mark Palmer, Staff Writer at RevWrestling

Take a look at the wrestling resumes of most Olympic gold medal-winning wrestlers from the US, and just about all of them had considerable international experience, built on a foundation from being state champs back in high school, and NCAA champions in college.

Shelby Wilson is a notable exception to that rule.

Wilson, who, along with Terry McCann and Doug Blubaugh, won the gold medal for the US in freestyle at the 1960 Olympics, never wrestled in international competition before going to Rome. In fact, he never won an Oklahoma state title while at Ponca City High School… nor did he claim a national collegiate crown as an Oklahoma State Cowboy.

Which makes Shelby Wilson winning the Olympic gold medal all the more special.

An introduction to the mat

Shelby Wilson grew up on a farm outside Ponca City, a community of 25,000 in northern Oklahoma, just south of the Kansas border. He was the oldest of four children, with a sister and two brothers, both becoming Oklahoma high school state champs.

Shelby Wilson