Two Bronze Medals!

The day went well for us today. I wrestled the Finnish guy first round and beat him in two periods with a gutwrench each period.

Then the bronze medal round started.

Kerry wrestled first. He wrestled a Swedish wrestler with a very good straight lift. Kerry wrestled him well on the feet and countered a throw of his which I felt should have gotten Kerry two points. The refs felt differently. Kerry ended up losing. He battled hard and was fighting a sprained ankle from yesterday.

Deitchler was up next, wrestling Talon Knox who attends school with us at the USOEC. The first period was 1-1 with Deitchler defending last to win. Second period Deitchler lost the coin flip but reversed Talon for one point. This put him up 2-0 going in to his turn on top which is about as good of a situation as you could ask for. He made himself busy on top and won the match. It was a good win for him and a nice step to win a medal at an international competition. What he still lacks in size at 74KG he is making up for in stamina. He had every one of his opponents tired on this tour.

I was up last. I was wrestling Brad Ahearn of the U.S. Army. He was a U.S. National Champion last year and we have a slight rivalry going as we have beaten eachother numerous times. I dropped the first period 3-0 by getting gutwrenched. Second period I lost the flip but defended his gutwrench this time. I needed a turn to win the period and I scored a gutwrench on him right by the out of bounds with one second left in the period. Third period I won the flip and defended his gutwrench once again to win the match. It felt good to beat him again because he has one the last two against me.

Along with medals, they were also giving out appliances and electronics for awards. Deitchler got a DVD player and I got a microwave. Sadly, neither of us will be able to bring them back since they require a different voltage. HA.

This was an awesome way for us to end the tour. Even though Kerry didn't win a medal, he was happy with the way he wrestled. We've been over here almost three weeks and I think we're all ready for the USA. We're all taking things to work on back with us. It's going to be fun to get home and start playing around even more with techniques and strategy for the new rules. Everyone we've talked to is in agreement that the new rules are an improvement. I believe FILA is voting this weekend on whether or not to keep them. I could be wrong, but I overheard that at this tournament.

This will be our last post. We're leaving for the U.S. in less than three hours and need to get packed up and on a bus to the airport. Thanks for everyone who read and commenting and wished us luck on this tour. We also owe a thank you to the Storm and Dan Chandler along with Jay Antonelli who helped us set the tour up and get everything organized. We hope you enjoyed the blog. Thanks again!

From Sweden,
Chas Betts

Tournament is half over. We will all be wrestling to try to get a bronze medal tomorrow.

First round, I drew the Russian who won this tournament last year. He beat me with a gutwrench in the first period, I won the second period with a push-out, and the last period he gutwrenched me again and I failed to turn him to win. He won his next couple matches to bring me back in the wrestlebacks (repechage) to try to win a bronze. I will have to win one match to get in to the medal round where I would wrestle an American (Brad Ahearn.)

Kerry won his first match before losing to the 60KG champion from the tournaments in St. Petersburg and Vantaa Cup last weekend. His guy also qualified for the finals, putting Kerry in the bronze medal match.

Deitchler won two matches to get in to the semi-finals where he lost a very good and competitive match. He won the first period with a nice reverse lift for two points. The second period, he hit another reverse lift for one point, but he was then reversed for a point and ended up losing the period. The last period came down to Deitchler needing the turn to win. He was very close but it didn't happen for him. It was and exciting match. Losing in the semi-finals automatically qualifies him for the bronze medal match.

We got to eat reindeer for dinner tonight. Delicious. Talk to you tomorrow.

From Sweden,
Chas Betts

We just got back from weigh-ins. Our trip to Haparanda went pretty smoothly. We thought we were going to have to take a bus or a train from the airport, but they had someone there to pick us up and it was only a short 25 minute drive. The rooms are a slight downgrade from Goteborg, but it would have been hard not to have been. We get a weak internet connection when we take a chair next to the door. It's enough to keep the blog updated at least.

Brackets here look a little smaller than the ones in St. Petersburg. That definitely doesn't mean weaker. We saw a lot of Russians, a bunch of Swedish wrestlers, some Finnish guys, and Ukranians. The Army team is also here and we had a nice sauna go with them before weigh-ins. The saunas here are awesome. They are right outside in the middle of the snow and are heated with wood and a fire. It's different than any of us are used to.

The area up here looks really desolate. There is not much for civilization, but the scenery and landscape is beautiful.

It's nice to finally meet up with some Americans and even a couple guys from our team. We're really excited to wrestle. We want to bring some medals home. Talk to you tomorrow.

From Sweden,
Chas Betts

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. The training camp is finished. We ended today with three simulated competition matches. It was a good practice to end the camp and the week with. After that we hit the sauna and got our weight down a little, though none of us are really very much over. We weigh-in tomorrow night in Haparanda. Our flight leaves at 8:15 tomorrow morning, and we will have to get a bus/train ticket once we arrive because the airport we're flying in to is about an hour or so from Haparanda. The guys here were great the entire time. They were really friendly and all seem really excited to get over to the U.S. to train either in Colorado Spring or at the USOEC in Michigan. We all traded some gear with the guys and got some Swedish and Norweigen apparel. I am a big collector, so this was important to me. I think got my singlet count up above 50 now.

Our Thanksgiving dinner included a calzone for me, lasagna for Kerry, and some kind of pasta dish for Jake. We couldn't find any places with stuffing or mashed potatoes here.

Hopefully we'll continue to be lucky and have a good internet connection in Haparanda so we can continue to keep this updated until the end of the trip. If we do, we'll write again tomorrow night. If not, we'll try to find a way to get the results posted or sent before we head home.

We took a picture with the team after practice today. You can click on it to make it bigger.

From Sweden,
Chas Betts

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The time we spent in Gothenburg has been awsome! We got some good training and got to know the guys on the team.When you come to a different country where the wrestling is good,the guys training at the club are cool,and you learn a alot.It's the kind of stuff that get you excited about wrestling.
We wrestled three matches today in practice.Since were still a couple days out from wrestling it was good to blow out the lungs.The third match I had was with one of the guys from the club, we went at it hard. And he wrestled hard and there was a lot of points scored.I won the match with last takedown. After practice we got the team together and thanked them for everything. Before we left we traded some gear. I got a Norway singlet and a club sweatshirt(and I love gear)! After the training here in Sweden I am excited and prepared to compete at the Haparanda Cup!

Jake Deitchler

Our training camp is winding down and we're nearing tournament time. This morning we played some hockey and this afternoon we wrestled on our own while the other guys did a pretty intense strong man type workout. The coach advised us against doing it due to the fact that we are competing in a couple days and he said we'd be pretty sore. We actually did a weight workout on Monday that we are all still sore from today. They are showing us a lot of little new exercises that we haven't seen before.

Yesterday morning we went and visited the Fish Church, but I think we were too early because not only was it closed, but there were no boats or anything bringing fish in. We got up and went at 4:45 A.M. because all the locals told us that would be the right time. It was fun anyway, though. On our way there we got lost and were wandering through another area where they bring fish in and it stunk terribly. After the Fish Church, we got some coffee and kept walking around and climbed up pretty high until we had a really nice view of the city and the water. It was still dark out so it all looked really awesome.

Tomorrow is our last day training here in Goteborg. Friday morning we'll fly to Haparanda and weigh in Friday night. The tournament is set up so that all matches up until the finals and the repechage take place on Saturday, and the rest of the matches take place on Sunday. We are scheduled to fly home Sunday night. We're all getting pretty excited for the competition this weekend and we're looking to redeem ourselves from the tournament in St. Petersburg.

Jake was asked to stay for some duals they are having here in two weeks to fill an empty 74KG spot that they have. It was looking like it may have been a go until today when they told him that it was too late and they don't have time to get all the paperwork in.

There is also an open spot at 84KG for a USA vs. France dual taking place in Paris next week. They asked me if I would be interested and I told them yes. I am waiting to hear back. Looks like my trip could be extended.

We'll talk to you again tomorrow night.

From Sweden,
Chas Betts

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It's been a little over a week training here in Gothenburg.Its been great training.We've gotten to know the coach and the guys on the team pretty well(it helps that i talk alot.)Yesterday I had the best practice i've had all year.I have been reading Steve Fraser's book,so going to practice this last week I have focused on learning to "love the fight!"I noticed that it makes a tough practice fun.Then I'm scoring points too.Then today we played a game called "idabong,"its floor hockey on the wrestling mats! In the coolest game i've ever played on a wrestling mat(besides wrestling room soccer.)

With the tournament coming up.It's exciting to think were gonna wrestle here in a few days. With wrestlers from all around Europe.With a solid week and a half of training I feel prepared in all aspects. Im ready to show them the "American Style of Greco wrestling!"

Jake Deitchler

Trained twice today. We did a nice plate workout this morning where they ran us through a lot of exercises none of us had ever seen before. The guys took us to breakfast at their sports school and it was interesting to see them all throwing in chewing tobacco before walking in to their classes. They said their teachers don't care over here.

This afternoon we did some live situational goes where you basically give the guy a lock and let him start his move, then try to counter.

We're going to do our best to wake up early and head down to what they call the "Fisk Hamnet" or "Fish Church." It's a market down by the sea where they bring in all the fish and seafood. We hope to get down there early enough to watch some of the catches come in. Should be fun.

From Sweden,
Chas Betts

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The Haparanda cup is only five days away now! Training is going well, after being here for a week we have had the chance to get to know guys on the team. So after our morning workout the guys on the team took us to basically what was their high school. It was Awsome! Tommorow morning we are gonna wake up early and go watch the boats come into the docks from the sea, then go to the fish market.

Then again as we get closer to the tournement I get more excited to compete! After training and wrestling over here.I have found out that we train harder in the United Stated than anywhere in the world. So as I develop and move up a weight class. I'm gonna wrestle hard the whole match, and give the Beatdown!

Jake Deitchler

This trip is going by extremely fast. I think we're doing a good job getting the most out of it. We have all wrestled with Swedish guys of all sizes and we're already starting to play with new techniques and strategies for the new rules. It's kind of refreshing to be able to think about the sport from so many different angles. You have to adapt and change with the new rules. You can't allow them to limit you. If these rules get implemented full time, I think there is going to be a period of about 6-8 months of guys just getting used to them and adjusting their game plans. It's a very dynamic sport and that's an awesome thing.

Today some of the wrestlers stopped by our apartment and offered to take us around and show us the city tonight. It should be fun to get shown around a little bit rather than just wander like we have been doing. Tomorrow we are going to the Goteborg Museum of Art which is about a 2 minute walk from our apartment.

I think I convinced Jake to blog tonight. I'll let him finish this.

From Sweden,
Chas Betts

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So far the trip has been awsome. Like Chas was saying its been great to train in a different envirement. It has taught me that, regardless of where your training you have to be tough and wrestle to the best of your ability. I like having the chance to train with the Swedish guys here. They speak very good English(which helps alot).haha. Yesterday I had the chance to train with a guy named Christopher, his dad was a Greco coach in Denmark for twelve years so he knows greco very well. So having the chance to drill with him taught me a lot of new little techniques. Becasue with the new rules you must adapt and find a style of that fits you.

Tonight as i was walking back to our apartment. Across the street from where were staying, there was a crowd of people taking pictures and looking at something. So I went over there to see. And sure ennough Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones came into town for a wedding at a famous hotel and club right across the street! So the time in Sweden has been filled with fun experiences, and I liked the whole experience.

Jake Deitchler

Yesterday we had two practices. They keep them short and sweet here. A lot of live wrestling for about an hour and that's it. They are nice practices to have the week before a tournament. We lifted some weights after morning practice and Jake stayed a little longer to finish and got locked in the wrestling room. He had to jump out a window. Awesome.

Today we just had afternoon practice. We used the time during the day to walk around and explore the city a little bit. We walked through a smaller area of town with extremely narrow streets and a lot of shops and coffee houses. It was all decorated like Christmas time. We eventually found our way to the harbor and the sea. A lot of boats were coming in and out and we figured that a lot of people take the boat to work in the morning or something, because many of them would get off the boat and hop right on their bike. Kind of neat. We also saw a lot of old churches and some pretty cool landscape. The architecture here is awesome. The buildings remind me a lot of certain areas of Manhatten.

After exploring we went to practice which was this week's toughest so far in my opinion. We did a lot of live par terre wrestling and ended practice with some bear crawls with a partner on your back. It was pretty difficult. We hit the sauna, found a new place to eat, and came back.

Tonight we're going to watch the guys wrestle at NYAC in the dual meet. I almost got Jake to blog tonight, but he fell asleep 20 minutes ago. He sleeps a lot. Maybe next time.

I'll leave you with a few pictures of Goteborg:

Down near the harbor:

Residential area:

Awesome/Huge cranes and ships:

Street where our apartment is:

From Sweden,
Chas Betts

We slept quite a bit today due to our sleeping schedule getting messed up from all the traveling yesterday. We had our first practice this evening and it went really well. We wrestled a couple of matches with two different Swedish guys and then did some drilling and throws to end practice. They seem to be keeping it short due to many of their guys traveling to the same tournament next week as we're going to.

We met the coach and the Chairman of the club here and they were both very nice and helpful men. We have two practices tomorrow. It seems that they have a very short practice in the morning that will focus on strength and some partner lifting. They said all of their workouts are on the mat, which is something different than we are used to. When we think of strength training, we often just think of heading to the weight room. Should be fun. In the afternoon we should have a similar practice to the one today.

Not much else today, I'll leave a couple pictures here. One of Deitchler and, one wide view of the room we're training in. Enjoy. Talk to you tomorrow.

From Sweden,
Chas Betts

Today we had a pretty draining travel day. Our driver had to study for an exam, so he had to bring us to the airport at 9 A.M. even though our flight wasn't until 5 P.M. We flew from there to Stockholm, where we had to go get our bags and re-check them. Then we flew in to Goteborg. We were all pretty drained at this point until we saw the city. This place is beautiful. It is very clean and extremely modern. Quite a change from St. Petersburg. One of the wrestlers picked us up and spoke excellent English and was very helpful. He brought us to our apartment which is unbelieveable. It's in the dead center of the city, and it's a very large apartment with a huge kitchen and plenty of space to breath. I think Deitchler went crazier when he found out we had wireless internet than he did when he made the Olympic team.

We start training tomorrow and the training center is just a short walk from our apartment. We will train tomorrow evening at 6:30. We have morning and afternoon workouts on Wednesday and Friday. It should be a good camp and very helpful to prepare for the Haparanda Cup. It's always nice to be in the country you're going to be competing in for a while before the tournament to help get yourself acclimated.

I'll leave you with a picture of our awesome kitchen to end the blog. We'll take some pictures at the training site tomorrow and get them up.

From Sweden,
Chas Betts

Not much happened today. Just walked around some and we missed the finals of 96KG and Heavyweight because they changed the schedule of the tournament and we didn't know.

We visited a store that sold all of Russia's Olympic gear from this year, but it was far too expensive for us to buy anything. They had some awesome stuff, though.

We leave tomorrow afternoon for Sweden. Hopefully we'll have some sort of internet connection at the place we're staying so it will be as easy to keep this updated as it has been.

Paulson, we have footage of all the matches, but we don't have a cord to transfer them to the laptops. Sorry.

Thanks for all the comments, they are appreciated. Talk to you soon.

From Russia,
Chas Betts

Jake and I wrestled today. Neither of us won a medal. We are pretty dissapointed in ourselves.

I lost first round to a decent guy from Russia. I won the first period but lost the following two. He ended up in the Bronze medal match, and I'm not sure how he did. This means I did not get a chance to wrestle back. Jake won his first two matches before losing his third match to a tough Ukranian. The Ukranian then lost to a Russian in the semifinals eliminating Jake from the tournament.

Jake put it best for all of us after we were done when he said "I hate losing." It's a weird feeling and hard to describe what it's like to come all the way over here and do poorly. It's very unsettling to lose after training so hard all year like this. You also have to realize that you're going to hit bumps in the road and we need to move past them. I've realized that you can't dwell on tournaments like this, but you also can't just forget about them like they didn't happen. You have to find the good and bad things to take from it, and I think we've all done that. We were pretty supportive of eachother and all talked about things we did well and things that we need work on.

I was very proud of Jake during his second match as he had to overcome a pretty big attempt at a screwjob by the refs to beat one of the hometown heroes. They tried multiple times to take points away from him and to give the Russian unwarranted points, but Jake kept pushing and beat the guy anyway. Jake still needs to put on some size for 74KG, but looked very good today in my opinion.

Tomorrow we have a free day to explore St. Petersburg and go to some bazaars and other things. Jake and I are going to try to get our picture taken next to the statue of Karelin. On Monday we'll be flying to Sweden for a 10 day training camp before flying to Haparanda which is officially a go.

Another interesting note about the tournament is that along with medals, they were giving away stereos, dvd players, and digital cameras to the medalists.

We'll write again tomorrow evening.

From Russia,
Chas Betts

This morning we all woke up around 5:00-5:30 due to the jet lag. We went out to find some breakfast and were unsuccesful. We went to a place we ate at three or four times last year, but it turned in to Italian food which didn't sound good at 6:00 A.M. We just went to the store and bought some yogurt and bread for which Deitchler provided the peanut butter.

We headed to the arena and helped Kerry warm up. The brackets were all in Russian, so it took us a while to find his name. We figured it out because we remembered that USA looks like CWA over here. He won his first match handily, and lost his second match to the Bronze medalist. This means he was not pulled back in to the tournament.

They are wrestling this tournament under a set of modified rules. They are using this series of Fall tournaments in Europe to test out the new rules. I will give you the basics.

1. If someone scores within the first minute of each period, the forced par terre is eliminated.

2. If you get ahead 6-0 (which is a tech-fall) they ask you if you would like to continue. If you do, you can get ahead by 8 points which will end the match entirely, regardless of what period it is.

3. The par terre start has been returned to the original start from Athens and before. Triangle on the back.

The rules are nice and it seemed to us like there was quite a bit more scoring on the feet. In the later rounds it was a little less common, but this was due to the wrestlers being better and having better position. There were a lot of beautiful techniques performed today and some very awesome scrambles.

Deitchler and I went to weigh-ins at 3:30 to get a workout in before they started at 4:30. In the process of working out and checking my weight, my sandals were stolen. I thought they were gone, then when I was weighing in I saw a Polish wrestler at the scale next to me wearing them. I didn't have a chance to tell him to give them to me because the guy weighing me in was trying to ask me if my name was Charlie so I had to yell at Kerry to get them for me. We got them back.

We got some pictures off of Deitchler's camera tonight, and below is a shot of the arena.

The following video was taken before the finals started tonight. At foreign tournaments they usually hold some sort of ceremony before the finals with dancing and gymnastics. Here is the one from this evening.

I also got Jake to write a blog tonight, it's written below...

"So if there is one thing I have realized from the tour so far, it is that you have to be ready to handle anything thrown at you. Today was the first day of wrestling at a University in Downtown St.Petersburg. There was some great wrestling. And they used the new rules. Its exciting to think that were the first Americans to see and wrestle with the changes. Me and chas weighed on today, then we wrestle tommorw. Its gonna be awsome to start wrestling and competing again! Russia has been good so far. The weather is about the same as Minnesota. Except people do stare at us alot.haha. But regardless of anything going on. All we have to worry about is wrestling hard and putting the beatdown!

Jake Deitchler"

See Paulson, it wasn't that hard. :)

From Russia,
Chas Betts

We arrived about 3 hours ago. The plane rides were a lot better than we expected. We got lucky and on the flight from Detroit to Amsterdam they had the little screens on the back of every chair so you could watch movies. It's always so nerve racking waiting to see if you get the little movie screens or not. Without those, the flights can get extremely long. We watched The Dark Knight on ours and fell asleep. We also had zero layover time at either airport. We met up with Deitchler in Amsterdam, and it sounded like he had almost no layover time as well. We landed in St. Petersburg and were greeted by one of the club's wrestlers. It is far warmer here this year than it was last year and there is no snow yet. He drove us to our hotel and asked us what we thought about Barack Obama. For those who haven't ridden in a vehicle in a foreign country, it's a crazy experience. We came close to an accident 4 or 5 times just on the way to our hotel.

After that we went to the arena to see about weigh-ins for Deitchler and Kerry. It turns out that only Kerry will be wrestling tomorrow, and Deitchler and myself will be wrestling on Saturday. They also told Kerry he didn't have to weigh in and not to worry about it since we got here so late. First tournament I've been to where you got to choose your weight class without weighing in. Naturally we went to Sbarro's right afterwards.

We are all three sharing a hotel room which is slightly nicer than the one we had last year. I took some pictures, but realized I forgot my USB cord so I won't be able to transfer them to my laptop. I saw Deitchler taking some too, so I may be able to use his camera.

Tomorrow morning Deitchler and I will help Kerry warm-up for the tournament and coach him since we are alone on this tour. We'll also probably end up doing a little "play-wrestling" session later on just to get our weight down for tomorrow night's weigh-in.

From Russia,
Chas Betts

Hey everybody. Kerry and I just got to the airport and got checked in. The trip has officially begun. This morning we had an intense strength and conditioning workout which included stair sprints, canoes/rows, ropes, situps, dips, etc. We also hit the sauna this afternoon right before we left for the airport. Just some stuff to get loose before what's going to end up being about a 17 hour trip.

We recently got some interesting news about the tournament in Russia this weekend. Weigh-ins for the first four weights are on Thursday at 6:30. We arrive at 5:00 P.M. This means Kerry and Deitchler are going to have to get off the plane and go directly to weigh-ins. This is pretty crazy for an international tournament, as teams usually try to arrive days earlier to get somewhat used to the time difference and atmosphere. I get an extra day between our arrival and weigh-in because I'll be wrestling the second day.

We also had quite a hassle and a pretty big scare with our Visa/Passport situation. Russia requires a Visa for anyone traveling in to their country. We remembered this a little late and had to rush process our Visas. I thought mine was taken care of until I got a call from the Russian Consulate telling me I didn't have any empty passport pages. This means they had to send back my passport, I had to send it to get more pages put in, and send it back to the consulate to get my Visa in time for them to send it back to me. Pretty confusing. I got my Visa on Monday, and Kerry didn't get his until this morning. We were pretty worried about his getting here on time for us to depart tonight.

The latest we've heard on the tournament in Haparanda is that they are appealing the 2 year ban of tournaments that was given to Sweden. The Swedish Federation sent an e-mail to USA Wrestling asking them to not cancel any tickets and please hold out hope that the tournament will still be hosted there. They said they should know something by the end of the week. We'll be hoping for the best.

This will be the last post from America. Like I said, we know the location of an internet cafe in St. Petersburg right down the street from where we'll be staying. We should be able to get online before the tournament and post again.

From Marquette Airport,
Chas Betts

Hello everyone. I (Chas) will be running a blog for Jake and I during our trip. This first post will be divided in to seperate posts from Jake and I since we are not together yet. We will meet up in Amsterdam because Kerry Regner, a teammate of mine, and myself will be flying out of Marquette while Jake is coming from Colorado Springs. We are leaving tomorrow evening.

Kerry and I went on a tour similar to this last Fall. We went to St. Petersburg, Russia for training and a tournament, followed by Helsinki, Finland to compete in the Vantaa cup. This year we'll only be competing in St. Petersburg. After that, we'll fly to Goteborg, Sweden for a 10 day training camp followed by a trip to Haparanda, Sweden to compete in the Haparanda Cup. As many of you have probably already heard, the Haparanda Cup is in jeopardy and may be cancelled due to Abrahamian's antics at the Olympics this Summer. We're hopeful that they won't cancel it, and we'll be fine.

I have spent the last 4 days at home getting a mental refresher before we leave. We had 3 weeks of extremely intense training at the USOEC in preparation for everyone's Fall competition and tour schedules. We'll be posting pictures and, internet permitting, some video clips of our trip. I know they have an internet cafe right down the street of the place we'll be staying in St. Petersburg, so that will be easy. We'll find out about Sweden when we get there.

From MSP Airport with a delayed flight to Marquette,
Chas Betts

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Well it's that time of year again! The leaves are off the trees and the cold weather is in the air. But most important, wrestling is starting again. So right now I am packing and organizing to go compete on my first international tour.

After the Olympics I found out somethings about wrestling, life, and about myself. It was in that short time that I decided to move out the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Im following my dream. And doing what I love to do(wrestle Greco-Roman).

Now it is that time that tournements start taking place. And for some reason its brings an excitement thats hard to explain. Every day you train hard and smart, yet competition is the only thing that matters. I have also moved up a weight class to 74 Kg. So im excited to wrestle these foreign guys hard and get them tired!

Give the Beatdown!
Jake Deitchler