1. FILA Coaches Clinic Madrid December 2006 Analysis of the World Championships 2006 Greco-Roman Prof. Dr. Harold Tünnemann

2. Analysis of the Greco-Roman world championships 2006 in Guangzhou 1. Basic preliminary remarks 1. Country-specific aspects of performance in competition 1. Qualitative analysis of combat behaviour 3.1. Qualitative analysis of combat behaviour of all participants 3.2 Qualitative analysis of combat behaviour of world champions 4. Individual world top performances under technical-tactical aspects

3. 1.Basic preliminary remarks The 2006 World Championships were characterized by interesting developments. At the Junior World Championships in Guatemala it was in particular the women from Latin America who showed impressive performance progress. Other countries, like Sweden, Belarus, Roumania and Kazakhstan, were able to prove progresses in performance at the women’s events. Iran, Turkey, the USA, Japan, Kyrgistan, Kazakhstan and South Africa in freestyle wrestling, and Turkey, Iran, Korea, Kazakhstan, Hungary and Bulgaria in Greco-Roman style have reached the world’s elite in junior wrestling. Thus, they have demonstrated distinct progresses in their junior training concepts.

4. Under the aspect of successful work with the juniors, the teams from Russia have to be mentioned particularly, who represent absolute world’s elite in all three styles. From the point of view of contents, the further increase in technical versatility, the high stability and effectiveness of attacking actions and the increasing hardness of competition, particularly in women’s Wrestling, have to be mentioned. So it will not surprise to meet again some of the world’s best juniors at the Olympic Games in Peking.

5. At the Senior World Championships, the women from Belarus, Germany, Poland and Sweden were able to prove progresses in performance compared with Budapest. Once again, the Japanese team was outstanding, winning medals in all 7 weight categories and thus once again improving their incredibly strong performance in Budapest. In freestyle wrestling, the wrestlers from Iran, USA, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Azerbaidshan could improve as teams compared with Budapest. In Greco-Roman wrestling, the competitors from USA, Georgia, Russia, Iran and Finland could improve. There are distinct progresses in performance in the wrestlers from Turkey, who could gain another 13 nation points and so reached the first place in the nations ranking.

6. From the point of view of contents it becomes clear the forthcoming Olympic Games 2008 in Peking have already cast their shadows on Guangzhou. Here, tribute is to be paid to the great and successful commitment of the Chinese organisers, who made with meticulousness and passion the 2006 World Championships a great experience for all participants.

7. In Guangzhou, plenty of established wrestlers, like Saitiev, Barzakov, Nazarjan or Yerlikaja had to bury their hopes for medals or titles early. Youth was rushing forward with a view toward the Olympic Games 2008. Both in Greco-Roman (Sourian Reihanpour) and in freestyle wrestling (Khadimurov Gatsalov), only one world champion could defend his title from the previous year.

8. Coaches and athletes have adapted to the new competitons rules and they have modified training regarding the special strength and endurance abilities as well as the technical-tactical challenges. The realisation of 4 to 5 bouts a day requires enormous improvements of the special physical conditional abilities. As the results show, these requirements meet best with the training philosophy of American men. They were able to improve during the individual bouts and they could best cope with 5 bouts a day.

9. As regards the technical-tactical aspect, a concentration on the decisive gain of points during the last seconds of bout and the increase in pushing the opponent from the mat have been striking. In Greco Roman wrestling, in the clinch, the wrestler in “par terre” position allows less lift techniques, because immediately at the moment of the whistle, he turns himself into the opponent. The World Championships in Guangzhou have also made us clear that regarding the competitions rules, there are still some unresolved problems, particularly in Greco-Roman wrestling.

10. Still, the first minute in standing position remains in principle unimportant for the striving to gain points. The technical versatility and so the attractiveness of the bouts decline. The hesitant taking of the clinch position results in unacceptable prolongations of the duration of the bouts and the events. The sometimes unsporting behaviour of the athletes when taking the clinch position makes the referees’ work difficult and is unattractive for the public’s appeal. Some wrestlers seem to have attended a special semester at the drama school.

12. In the detail analysis of the three wrestling styles we put in the centre the following positive features of combat behaviour, which determine the development. In particular, the integrated video analysis shows many attractive technical-tactical actions serving as examples for coaches and athletes.

13. 2. Country-specific aspects of performance in competition As I have mentioned already before in Greco-Roman wrestling, the competitors from USA, Georgia, Russia, Iran and Finland could improve. There are distinct progresses in performance in the wrestlers from Turkey, who could gain another 13 nation points and so reached the first place in the nations ranking. The Wrestlers from Hungary, Bulgaria and Belarus had to suffer losses.

14. Fig. 1 Nation points of the 2006 WC and the 2005 WC in Greco - Roman

15. 3.1 Qualitative analysis of combat behaviour of all participants The championships in Guangzhou again like those in Budapest took place under the omen of the evaluation of the new competition rules, which had been modified with the aim to improve the attractiveness of Greco-Roman wrestling. Undesirable and desirable trends became evident during the realization, which made permanent adaptations necessary. FILA took the necessary steps and the consequences had been discussed at the Referee’s clinic recently in Ankara. We can state that the new concept of wrestling rules has come to fruition. However, where there is much light there is also much shade. Therefore we want to analyse in the following the Guangzhou world championships and examine the impacts of modified competition rules on combat behaviour. 3.Qualitative analysis of combat behaviour

16. Fig. 2 Quality of points (winner) comparison WC 2005 and WC 2006 in Greco - Roman

17. Fig. 3 Quality of points comparison WC 2005 and WC 2006 in Greco - Roman

18. Figures 2 and 3 are showing the decline of technical points with high values (5-points, 3-points and 2- points). The winner of 2006 reached less 5, 3 and 2 points than the world champions of 2005. If we look at the level of all participants we can find out the same tendency.

19. Fig. 4 World top performance 1976 - 2006 WC in Greco - Roman

20. Figure 4 clearly shows that after an enormous performance leap is to be registered as regards the technical world top performance in 2005, we have a clear decline in Guangzhou 2006. The reason for this decline is very clear. Coaches and athletes have had adapt themselves to the lift techniques during the clinch. The defending parterre wrestler beneath let the upper wrestler not so much chances to lift while right after the whistle turns into the opponent. But anyhow the value is with 1.7 points per minute the second highest value since our measurements of 1976.

21. But as we have already stressed out above we have other problems in Greco-Roman wrestling now: Still, the first minute in standing position remains in principle unimportant for the striving to gain points. The technical versatility and so the attractiveness of the bouts decline. The hesitant taking of the clinch position results in unacceptable prolongations of the duration of the bouts and the events. The sometimes unsporting behaviour of the athletes when taking the clinch position makes the referees’ work difficult and is unattractive for the public’s appeal. But we will come to more details later on.

22. Fig. 5 Attack efficacy comparison WC 2006 to WC 2005 in Greco - Roman

23. The decline of the wrestling performance 2006 in Greco- Roman Wrestling we can see also on closer inspection of the Attack efficacy. It is normal that a high attack efficacy is an index for attractive wrestling. Unfortunately we have to note in almost all leading countries since 2005 a decline in this parameter of combat behaviour (fig.5). This turn to safety first strategy we can see especially see in the wrestling techniques and in the tactics of clinch positions both as upper man and as defender. In principle we never can realize an improvement of the attacking quality 2006. The wrestlers from Bulgaria, Hungary, Finland Georgia and Turkey have forgotten a little bit their attack qualities of the last year.

24. Fig. 6 Fighting efficacy WC 2006 in Greco - Roman

25. The best value in attack behaviour is little helpful when it is accompanied by weak defence behaviour. Therefore, in figure 6, we have compiled the nations’ performance indexes and the values of attack and defence. The following ranking arises: Iran with a performance index of 0.75, and Russia with 0.54. Close together are Ukraine (0.45), Turkey (0.44), Georgia (0.43) and USA (0.42). Finland shows a negative performance index.

26. 3.2 Qualitative analysis of combat behaviour of world champions Fig. 7 Attack efficacy of the winner since 2004

27. Up till now we considered mainly the values of nations and of all bouts. May be the world champions of the year 2006, the best representatives of our sport can us make happy with a better wrestling behaviour. After going into detail analyzes of this group (35 bouts) I have to say no. The examination of the individual scores of the winners delivers a picture which is similar to that of all participants (fig. 7).

28. It is obvious the enormous improvement of the attack efficacy of the world champions 2005 after the change of the rules 2004. It is also obvious the decline of the attack efficacy from 2005 to 2006. The background and the causes have been discussed already. The combat behaviour of each winner could be discussed under the aspect of strategy and individualization. This would go too far in this presentation. But it could be useful to consider the outstanding attack efficacy of the Iranian world champion 2006 and 2005 Souryan Reihanpour (55kg). He is the only world champion who topped the attack efficacy of his own and the strategy of 2005! On the other hand the world champion at the 60 kg weight class who shows the highest decline of the attack efficacy 2006 with an special individual combat strategy. But we come to this aspect later.

29. Fig. 8 Wrestling efficacy winner WC 2006 in Greco - Roman

30. It is no surprise that we have the same situation with the Wrestling efficacy of the winners as with the attack efficacy (fig. 8). The relatively smaller difference between the attacking points and defending points is due to the declined attack efficacy (see technical structure) and the growing up of the defending values (see the points without techniques during the clinch).

31. Fig. 9 Wrestling efficacy winner WC 2006 in Greco - Roman

32. The partially dramatic decline of the combat behaviour will be evident if we compare the values of Wrestling efficacy 2006 to 2005 (fig. 9). Only the Reihanpour could improve his performance on the basis of his own strategy as we can see later. The other world champions did not show a better performance as the champions of 2005. But also we can see the performance difference between the champions Nunez and Baroev(120kg) and Georgiev and Warren (60kg).

33. Fig. 10 Comparison of total points and points of the first minutes of bout

34. Now let us have a short glance at the proportions of standing and par-terre wrestling and the problems of the first minute. As we have mentioned already last year in Rome, the first minute of the bout and so the standing position is nearly unimportant in comparison with the clinch situation (fig. 10) If we compare the points in the first minute to the total points we can ignore the points during the first period. Only 0,5 points per minutes will be realized during the first period.

35. Fig. 11 Comparison efficacy of attack standing and per-terre

36. The problems with the first period are connected very close with the technique structure concerning standing and parterre wrestling. As the figure 11 shows we can almost forget the points realized in the standing position. Only 0.1 points per minute came from the standing position and the winners of the heavy weight classes ( up to 74kg) ignore the standing position completely.

37. Fig. 12 Points by and without clinch

38. It is very clear that the clinch and that means the no dynamic standard situation are dominating the Greco- Roman Wrestling. So it is logical that we have to investigate the clinch more deeply. Figure 12 shows the relation of points by clinch to points without clinch. At first we have to note that almost 80% of the total points are clinch points. Extremely low points without clinch will be realized by the heavy weight classes.

39. Fig. 13 The detailed quality of the clinch points

40. The figure 13 shows that 60 percent of the clinch points are coming from lift techniques, 38% ( ! ) are so called no technical points (warnings and points with no realizing technical points during the clinch), and only three percent are points by other techniques (e. g. gut wrench and turn over). Out of the standards seems to be the 60kg world champion Joe Warren. He ignores the lift and other techniques and realized the clinch with no techniques. But how he could finish as a world champion? We find the answer in the next figure.

41. Fig. 14 Technical structure of the winners of the WC 2006

42. Figure 14 shows us the technical structure of the World Championships 2006 and confirms three facts. Joe Warren has been concentrated on pushing the opponent out of the mat (pink colour). The dominating technique is the lifts with no surprise. All the other techniques are do not play a role in the strategic concept of the world champions, may with one or two exceptions: Baroev and Li Yan Yan have not forgotten the throwing techniques (green colour).

43. 4.Individual world top performances under technical-tactical aspects Best techniques 5 points NOR - VEN

44. Best techniques 5 points CHN - UKR

45. Best techniques 5 points RUS - KAZ

46. Best techniques 5 points HUN - SWE

47. Best techniques 5 points POL - GEO

48. Best techniques 5 points IRI - FIN

49. Best techniques 5 points ITA - EST

50. Best techniques 5 points BLR - SWE

51. Best techniques 3 points BLR - UZB

52. Best techniques 3 points GER - UKR

53. Best techniques 3 points UKR - TUR

54. Best techniques 3 points IRI - CZE

55. Best techniques 3 points FIN - UKR

56. Best techniques 3 points LTU - JPN

57. Best techniques 3 points FIN - POL

58. Best techniques 3 points CZE - TUR

59. Best techniques 3 points GEO - CZE

60. Best techniques 1 points RUS - USA

61. Best techniques 1 points BUL - KGZ

62. Best techniques 1 points EGY - GEO

63. Best techniques 1 points EGY - TUR

64. Clinch CHN - UKR

65. Clinch CHN - RUS

66. Clinch FIN - CUB

67. Foul TUR - FIN

68. Foul CHN - KGZ

69. Foul USA - TUR

70. Video evidence GEO - CZE