The vexing Iran conundrum

With leadership comes responsibility. At wrestling’s freestyle World Cup Sunday in Los Angeles, the Iranian men’s wrestling team asserted it is, once again, best in the world. Now the challenge facing it — as well as everyone connected to the sport, indeed the broader Olympic movement — is as simple and elegant as it is vexing.

Are the Iranians — that is, its government, through its wrestling program — prepared to step up and show they will fully engage with the world?

If not, what is to be done?

Jordan Burroughs, the American champion, said these words after wrestling Sunday night, and while they were uttered in a slightly different context, they apply here as well: “I just want our sport to be great. I want people to give us the respect we deserve.”

There was great solidarity and sportsmanship on display over the weekend as wrestlers from Iran and the United States, from Ukraine and Russia, from Turkey and Armenia competed on the mat. There were handshakes. There was talk, meaningful talk, of “family.”

For that talk to be fulfilled, the Iranians have to wrestle all comers. Everyone. That means, should they appear, the Israelis.

In addition, for the sake of credibility and for the growth of wrestling, the Iranians must field a women’s wrestling team. Right now, they don’t.

These issues are vital. Wrestling last year escaped the death knell in a vote by the International Olympic Committee. It has a window — and that window is short — to keep proving to the IOC it is relevant in our 21st-century world.

In significant ways, wrestling advanced its case in this weekend’s action at the World Cup in Los Angeles, so much so that word is the 10-team World Cup is due back in LA in 2015.

At the same time, when your best team in your most important discipline is the projection of a state policy that is exclusionary and discriminatory — there’s no other way around it — that is a matter that calls not just for serious reflection but action.

“The challenge for us — not just for the Iranians — is that we are coming together not just for sport but for the betterment of mankind,” said Rich Bender, the executive director of USA Wrestling, evoking the aspirational ideal of the French baron Pierre de Coubertin, widely acknowledged as the founder of the modern Olympic movement.

“How do we do that?”

As a starting place:

If next year the World Cup is indeed back in Los Angeles, how about organizers pair up all 10 teams with area middle-schools and, as part of the program, organize a mandatory excursion for everyone — repeat, everyone — to the Museum of Tolerance on LA's Westside?

At every big-time soccer game, you see the players lining up at the start with kids. Pairing up with local schools would be a great way for the wrestling community to create outreach all kinds of different ways: it would help build needed community buzz around the World Cup, maybe jump-start a fund-raising opportunity for the schools and, along the way, raise awareness among everyone — again, everyone — of tolerance.

Who is opposed to tolerance?

If it’s the Iranian government, how does that position jibe not only with the ideals of the Olympic movement but with the Olympic charter? With the rules of FILA, the international wrestling federation?

No one outside Iran knows, for instance, why the Iranian wrestling team — due to come to LA last year immediately after an appearance in New York amid the Olympic reinstatement campaign — suddenly flew home. Or why it was OK this year to come to LA.

The Iranian athletes and coaches have, typically, been circumspect.

Further: no one on the outside knows whether the Iranian wrestlers were frustrated or upset — or otherwise — when denied the opportunity to come to LA last year.

Just like outsiders have no clue what is really going on when, as has been the case over the years at various events, Iranian athletes don’t show up to swim or suddenly fall ill at a taekwondo match when an Israeli is involved. Are the Iranian athletes themselves just as frustrated as anyone would seemingly be in that sort of situation?

Referring to last year’s planned trip to LA, Iranian wrestler Masoud Esmailpour Jouybari, who competes at 61 kilograms/134 pounds, speaking Saturday through a translator, said, “We were supposed to come last year but under some circumstances it didn’t happen.

“This is a place where many Iranians live, so the World Cup came here,” he said, meaning Southern California. “Hopefully, if it’s a great event, it can ease problems between the two countries.”

The axiom is that sports and politics are supposed to stay separate.

Reza Yazdani, the Iranian 2013 world champion at 97 kilos/213 pounds, had said Saturday, “It’s best if sports and politics don’t mix. In wrestling, it’s best if the politics stay out of the sport itself and people are able to appreciate the sport for what it is.”

This, though, is where they intersect.

FILA has done a commendable job of promoting the work of female referees, even — especially — at a male-only event such as the World Cup. The Iranians? They’re OK if a woman works as what’s called the “mat chairman” — that is, the official who sits table-side in the shadows and confirms the on-mat referee’s scores. But they “request” that a woman not work as the referee, as one did Sunday night in Burroughs’ 15-4 victory in the 74 kilogram/163-pound class over Ukraine’s Giya Chykhladze.

FILA officials are acutely aware of all of this. Rest assured Iran would otherwise have had the world championships by now.

It is reportedly the case, for instance, that official policy in Iran bars women from being spectators at events such as wrestling and soccer matches.

This is why Iran has been relegated to events on the calendar such as the 2013 World Cup, held in Teheran.

It’s also why there is no one from Iran on FILA’s ruling council, its bureau. Including the honorary president, a Rio 2016 coordinator, continental presidents, even a member suspended until next year, it features 24 personalities — and yet no one from Iran. It’s obvious why.

It's entirely uncertain whether isolation is the answer.

And the corollary — whether the regime believes it has sufficient leverage, confident the Olympic world would not want to do with Iran what was done years ago with South Africa over apartheid.

What to do about a country that has such passionate fans? If your metric is Facebook and Twitter, the United States is wrestling’s No. 1 fan base. No. 2? Iran. Measured by comments and shares, Iran is far and away your leader. The No. 1 city in the world for fan involvement? Teheran.

USA Wrestling sponsored the first American sports team to compete in Iran after the 1979 revolution. A U.S. freestyle team competed in the 1998 Takhti Cup in Teheran. Afterward President Clinton hosted the five wrestlers — Zeke Jones, Kevin Jackson, Melvin Douglas, Shawn Charles and John Giura — at the White House, with presidential spokesman Mike McCurry saying, “People-to-people contact is something useful for both nations.”

Jones is now the U.S. freestyle coach. He led the team to a third-place finish at the LA World Cup.

An American Greco-Roman team is due to go to Iran in May. The Americans have been to Iran 11 times since the revolution.

Iran’s LA World Cup delegation marked its 13th time a wrestling delegation has come to the United States since 1979.

Of course the stands Saturday and Sunday included plenty of women. No issues. The Iranian wrestlers waved to all in attendance. Some of the wrestlers even blew kisses.

As for people-to-people understanding, Iranian wrestler Hassan Rahimi, the 2013 world champion at 57 kilograms/125 pounds, said Sunday, “I have great memories from being here and being amongst Iranians. This is the first time our team has come to Los Angeles. We were supposed to come last year but some things came up and we couldn't make it.

“We're going to leave with a lot of really good memories and we hope to return. There's a lot to see in Los Angeles, Hollywood – for the worlds, it's one of the leading tourist destinations.”

On the mat, there can be no question of Iran’s dominance.

Iran won the 2013 freestyle world championships. Coming to Los Angeles, the Iranians had finished first or second in the last five World Cups, seven of the last eight.

In Saturday’s pool action, the Iranians were so much better than everyone — except for the Americans — that it was like watching a Mack truck square off in a demolition derby against a VW bug.

With rowdy — and knowledgeable — fans blowing horns and yelling “Iran!” the Iranians took it to Armenia, 8-0, and Turkey, 7-1. Then they defeated the Americans, 5-3.

On Sunday, the Iranians made short work of India, 8-0.

The domination of India was so thorough the Iranians did not give up a single point.

Against Turkey, three of the matches were 11-0; another was 11-1; a fourth was 10-0.

Two of the eight matches against Armenia ended in pins.

After rolling through Pool B, the Iranians met Russa — which had cruised undefeated through Pool A — in Sunday night’s finals.

Christakis Alexandridis, the Russian coach, had said Saturday that while he had a strong team, he also had a young team.

The Iranians, buoyed by the crowd, prevailed, 6-2. Four of the matches were shutouts.

Iran technical manager Ali Reza Rezaie said afterward, "We're really happy with the result. We're so glad we were able to make our fans here and in Iran proud. We plan to keep the success going."

For sure. Right?

Wrestling with it: US v. Iran

Iran is a mainstay in international wrestling. The United States has a long and proud wrestling history, too. In February, the International Olympic Committee's policy-making executive board moved to exclude wrestling from the 2020 Summer Games program. Sports officials in both countries would like to change that. Thus USA Wrestling is now promoting two meets: May 15 in New York, May 19 in Los Angeles. Both days: U.S. v. Iran. It's an example, a press release notes, of "international goodwill through wrestling," and follows an American wrestling trip in February to Teheran.

It is often said that sports and politics don't mix.

In this case, the sports is all about politics. It's sports politics. It's geopolitics. It's politics with ramifications yet uncertain.

It's "outrageous," Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles said of the wrestling exhibitions, asking rhetorically, in a reference to the Berlin Games used by the Nazis for propaganda purposes, "Did we not learn anything since 1936?"

The challenge for USA Wrestling is that it has an elemental goal: get back in the 2020 Summer Games. That is its narrow focus, and that is why the Iranians have been extended an invite.

"We think this an opportunity to use sport for good and maintain our position on the Olympic program," said Rich Bender, executive director of USA Wrestling.

The bigger-picture complexity is that Iran's Olympic-sport athletes have for the last several years withdrawn, purposely lost or suddenly reported feeling ill so that they wouldn't have to compete against Israelis.

The Olympic values purport to exemplify excellence, friendship and respect. Consider the record since 2004 in particular, and ask how USA Wrestling is -- simply by giving the Iranians this platform and the media attention that goes with it -- advancing those values.

Iran does not recognize Israel. It bans contact with the Jewish state.

New York and Los Angeles make up -- outside Israel -- the largest Jewish communities in the world.

At last summer's London Olympics, Iranian officials declared for the record that their athletes would indeed compete against Israelis.

But the only Iranian athlete who could possibly have faced an Israeli opponent -- judo champion Javad Mahjoob, competing in the 100-kilogram class -- pulled out immediately before the Games, claiming a digestive infection.

At the 2011 world swimming championships, Iran's Mohammed Alirezaei opted out of his qualifying heats in the 100-meter breaststroke. Israeli Gal Nevo was in the same race. Alirezaei told Associated Press he was "so tired and drowsy" from flying the day before the race.

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Alirezaei pulled out of the 100 breaststroke, which included another Israeli, Tom Beeri. The IOC accepted the explanation that Alirezaei was ill.

That both withdrawals came against Israelis, Alirezaei said when asked about it in 2008 -- that was simply a coincidence.

At the 2004 Games in Athens, Iran's Arash Mirasmaeli showed up the morning of his match against Israeli Udi Wax. But Mirasmaeli -- an experienced two-time world champion -- inexplicably did not make weight, "disqualifying" himself.

And more:

In 2006, Iran withdrew from the World Judo Championships, to avoid a match with Israel. A year later, Iranian referee Ahmed Kaspandi declined to referee a match in which an Israeli player was participating.

At the 2010 Youth Olympic Games in Singapore, Israel's Gili Haimovitz won the 48 kg/106 lbs. gold-medal match when Iran's Mohammad Soleimani defaulted; he claimed to have aggravated a leg injury.

Moreover, at the medal ceremony, Soleimani did not show up. The Israeli flag went up; the anthem was played; the silver-medalist's spot went vacant.

Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, listed in 2007 by Newsweek as one of the most influential rabbis in the United States, is a longtime sports fan. He said, "I was pretty shocked wrestling was removed because it's a dynamic sport. It brings people from around the world together. A lot of other things should have been cut first and they should restore it."

He also is a fan of the Games: "It is compelling. There are rules. There is no shtick. This is what sports are supposed to be."

In London, Iran won six wrestling medals, fully half its total of 12. Three were gold, third-best, behind only Russia and Japan. In Iran, wrestling really matters.

For comparison: the United States won four wrestling medals, two gold, out of 104 total.

Wrestling is not just about force and power. It's also about leverage. USA Wrestling had it but didn't use it, Cooper said, asserting that the federation should have have "had the guts" to invite a third party -- the Israelis.

If the conclusion had been that to invite the Israelis meant the Iranians wouldn't come -- well, Cooper said, "that rests the case."

As it happens, the May 15 event in New York, at Grand Central Terminal, is indeed a doubleheader. There's the U.S. v. Iran. And the U.S. v. Russia -- Russia is the world's leading wrestling power. Russia won 82 medals overall in London, 11 in wrestling.

The Israelis have not been invited.

The May 19 show in Los Angeles is set for the Sports Arena.

As further evidence that this tour is motivated by interests other than pure sport: international wrestling is hardly on the radar screen in LA, home of the Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers, Angels, Kings, Ducks, USC and UCLA.

Indeed, while USC and UCLA now field women's varsity sand volleyball and USC even has a women's lacrosse team, there is no USC nor UCLA varsity wrestling team, men's or women's. Olympic-style wrestling is simply just not part of the Southern California culture.

What is, though, and indisputably, is the Persian influence. Estimates vary, but there is no question there are hundreds of thousands of people who can claim ties to Iran in Los Angeles and Southern California, and the phrase "Teherangeles," especially for the area immediately south of UCLA, is a well-known part of LA life.

Iranian wrestlers have not competed in the United States since 2003, when the world championships were held in New York.

The Iranians are expected to bring two-time world champion Mehdi Taghavi Kermani at 66 kg/145.5 lbs., and two 2012 bronze medalists, Ehsan Lashgari at 84 kg/185 lbs., and Komeil Ghasemi at 120 kg/264.5 lbs.

The U.S. team in LA will be led by 74 kg/163 lbs. gold medalist Jordan Burroughs and 60 kg/132 lbs. bronze medalist Coleman Scott. Two other 2012 U.S. Olympians are on the U.S. roster: Tervel Dlagnev, the 2009 world silver medalist, at 120 kg/264.5 lbs, and Sam Hazewinkel at 55 kg/121 lbs.

The U.S. v. Russia meet is due to be held under some experimental rules designed to press wrestling's case before the IOC. U.S. v. Iran will feature the current international freestyle wrestling rules.

"It's too bad the Iranian sports system corrupts and debases what sports stands for," Cooper said, adding a moment later, "I am also disappointed the U.S. State Department did not put a caveat on this: the Iranian team would be welcome to come but not by debasing what America stands for.

"At best it's a lost opportunity and at worst it's sending a wrong signal. It's sending the signal that will be received by the mullahs that was the same signal Hitler got: you can do all these terrible things, make a mockery of human rights and still get invited to the dance. That's a shonda," Yiddish for shame.

He laughed a wry laugh and said, "That's a famous wrestling term. And you can quote me on it."

Straight talk about wrestling's future

Finally -- some straight talk about why the International Olympic Committee moved to kick wrestling out of the Summer Games in 2020, and  what to do about it. All you have to do, it seems, is tune in to radio station KCJJ, "The Mighty 1630," in Coralville, Iowa.

The Mighty 1630 would be all of 10,000 watts beaming out to Coralville, Iowa City and the rest of eastern Iowa, and earlier this week you could have heard Terry Brands, the associate head coach of the University of Iowa wrestling team and a 2000 Sydney Games bronze medalist in the sport, tell you in plain terms what happened and what needs to be done now.

FILA, the sport’s international governing body, was asleep at the switch, he said.

The IOC had been sending it signals for years that it "perceives us as different from how we perceive ourselves" but that message "went unheeded," with the result that the IOC executive board moved two weeks ago to remove wrestling from the list of 25 "core" sports on the 2020 Summer Games program.

What needs to happen going forward, he said, in the wake of leadership change at the top of FILA -- president Raphael Martinetti, a Swiss businessman, out in favor of acting president Nenad Lalovic of Serbia -- is elemental.

It's called lobbying. It's relationship-building. It's what FILA should have been doing all along.

All with the aim of getting wrestling included on the list of sports the IOC general assembly can review in September in Buenos Aires. The IOC board will draw up the list at its next meeting, in May in St. Petersburg, Russia. It's unclear how many sports the board will put forward for September review; the current odds favor three, with wrestling competing with the likes of squash, karate, sport climbing and a combined bid from baseball and softball.

There's room for just one more sport on the 2020 program -- if, and that's a big if, the IOC decides to include one more sport. The number, including golf and rugby, now stands at 27. By rule, the maximum number for any Summer Games is 28.

"If I'm a FILA rep," Brands said, "then I'm going to go out and I'm going to have dinner with people and I'm going to listen to them and I'm going to act like I care. Because I do care.

"Because that's what my job is. It's not about acting any more. I mean, are we with FILA because we want to have a status symbol or a resume booster? Or are we with FILA because we actually give a crap about wrestling?"

Truly, this is the fundamental question.

With some key exceptions, much of the outcry in the United States over the IOC’s move to exclude wrestling from the program core has been – as the saying goes – preaching to the choir.

It has been wrestling proponents talking to each other, most acting like the guy on the football team who didn’t see the crackback block coming.

For those feeling blindsided, Terry Brands has crystalized your question.

The course of action is also super-evident, at least at the IOC level – which means that, if the answer to his question is in the affirmative, everything said and done ought to be directed toward one goal:

It’s all about winning votes.

Understand, though, that the IOC plays by its rules. That’s the way it is.

That does not – repeat, not – mean the IOC is corrupt or venal. It means there’s a process, and it’s helpful to understand both context and process.

To begin:

Most talk since the IOC action has focused on how wrestling is a sport that is practiced the world over, with proponents noting there are 177 member nations of FILA.

But the numbers in the report that formed the basis of the IOC action also tell a different story.

The London 2012 Games welcomed 205 national Olympic committees. The wrestling competition included 71, or only 34.6 percent. Does that seem, to use the IOC’s phraseology, “universal”?

There are 12 African IOC members. In London, there was one African wrestling medalist. What is the African interest come September in seeing wrestling in the 2020 Games?

There are 10 IOC members from South or Latin American nations; their wrestlers won two medals last summer. Same question.

Of the 71 nations competing in London, wrestlers from 29 won medals.

By far the most medals went to European nations – 12 men and four women.

There are currently 101 members of the International Olympic Committee; the IOC is traditionally Eurocentric; 43 members are European.

Right now one of the moves within the broader Olympic movement is to establish or grow continental Games; the first European Games are scheduled for 2015. Yet Around the Rings, an Olympic newsletter, reported last week that wrestling officials had inexplicably not returned multiple calls to discuss being included in those 2015 Games.

The head of the European Olympic Committees? Patrick Hickey of Ireland. He also sits on the IOC executive board. He was quoted as saying he found the situation “exasperating.”

It’s little wonder that Jim Scherr, the former USOC chief executive -- and former executive director of USA Wrestling -- acknowledged in a conference call Thursday with reporters the sport now faces a "major challenge" in regaining its place for 2020 and beyond.

At the same time, he said, "It is a tremendous opportunity to make a real and lasting change for the future of the sport."

Wrestling, he said, needs to simplify rules, enhance the sport's presentation and create a better media model and sponsorship platform. It also, he said, needs to be a better member of the so-called Olympic family, which goes back to the person-to-person thing that Brands identified, as well as a broader understanding of what works in the IOC and what doesn't.

Here, though, is where things can get tricky. It takes relationships. It takes experience.

Candidly, it's not certain whether a hurry-up effort -- being pieced together on the fly with the aim of getting a job done by September after a February wake-up call -- is going to be enough.

It’s also not clear how some of the published responses in U.S. newspapers are going to play come September. Memories in the IOC can be vivid.

The Washington Post published an op-ed by Donald Rumsfeld, who served as U.S. secretary of defense for President George W. Bush, urging the IOC to reconsider, Rumsfeld saying he learned many life lessons as a high school and college wrestler.

In the Eurocentric IOC, reference to President Bush almost inevitably leads to mention of the U.S.-wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Who prosecuted those wars as secretary of defense? Rumsfeld, of course, who began the piece by attacking the IOC, saying it had in recent years “drawn fire for its lack of transparency,” later saying wrestling called to mind traditional values “rather than the arts festival and Kumbaya session that some may prefer the modern Games to be.”

If the former secretary was trying to win votes – what, exactly, was his strategy?

The Los Angeles Times published an op-ed praising the potential of relationship-building after American wrestlers were among those taking part recently in an event in Iran called the World Cup.

The article described Americans walking the streets of Tehran “not as people from the ‘Great Satan’ but as comrades in the union of athletes.” Awesome, right?

Wrestling is very big in Iran. Last summer in London, Iranian wrestlers won six medals; that was tied for third-best at the 2012 Games, along with Japan and Georgia. Azerbaijan won seven. Russia topped the medals table with 11.

Asked at the end of Thursday's call if there might now be plans for a USA vs. Iran match in the works like last year's pre-London Games USA vs. Russia freestyle headliner in Times Square, the current executive director of USA Wrestling, Rich Bender, cautioned that any such notion was "premature" but allowed, "There are some large-scale plans and ideas that can showcase our sport."

Certainly, sport can sometimes open doors diplomacy can't.

But, again, it’s votes, votes, votes. There aren't any Iranian members of the IOC.

Amid any high-fives over the Iranians' seemingly gracious welcome to the Americans, did anyone bother to wonder what would happen if an Iranian wrestler was at the Olympics and, say, drew an Israeli. What then?

The Iranians’ ongoing refusal to engage Israeli athletes on the field of play, citing all manner of excuses, has been a contentious point of intolerance for years now. Are the Iranians suddenly good partners for a campaign of purported fraternity and goodwill?

Just imagine a match like last year’s, but this time with Iranian wrestlers, and again in New York – home to the second-largest Jewish population in the world.

As for Japan -- there is only one Japanese member of the IOC, Tsunekazu Takeda, and he became a member only last year. Moreover, he is the president of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games bid. How much time and energy does he have in each and every day to devote to Tokyo 2020 -- which would be worth billions of dollars to his country -- and then to wrestling?

There are no Azerbaijani nor Georgian members.

The United States used to win a lot of medals in wrestling. No more. The Americans won four medals in London, out of 104. That's two percent of the medal total.

If you were in business, how much time and energy would you devote to something that was worth two percent of what you did?

Even so, it's probably worth it to the U.S. Olympic Committee to do more; chief executive Scott Blackmun and board chairman Larry Probst know full well they are in the relationship business, and for them wrestlers have undeniably proven a vocal constituency.

That said, this would seem to be a play the USOC would make in support of or in concert with the Russians, and their three IOC members. Those 11 medals made up 13 percent of the Russians’ 82 total in London, which is why President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said last week Russia would work with the IOC at "all possible levels" to keep wrestling in the Games.

There's also the strategy that Terry Brands suggested on The Mighty 1630.

"I would," he said, "start with prayers."