Albert Lea Tribune, MN

Olympic wrestler’s tantrum upstaged winner’s moment

Nathan Cooper, Beijing Olympics

Originally published 01:13 p.m., August 16, 2008
Updated 01:22 p.m., August 16, 2008

Nathan Cooper
BEIJING ‘ Memo to Ara Abrahamian: Please apologize to your country,
your teammates and the International Olympic Committee
immediately. And especially to the 185-pound Olympic wrestling
champion. You let your personal beef with a set of FILA (the
sanctioning body of international wrestling) officials cloud an
Olympic champion’s greatest athletic achievement.

To be fair, Abrahamian didn’t make much of a scene at the medal
presentation. Some headlines have made references to the
Armenian-turned-Swedish wrestler `throwing down his medal’ his protest
of his semifinal round loss. That wasn’t the case. He simply accepted
the first of two bronze medals, shook the presenter’s hand and turned
to congratulate the second bronze medalist.

He then stepped off the podium, removed the bronze and placed it in
the center of the mat nearest to him before walking away.

As a witness to the event, it didn’t cause much of a stir at China
Agricultural University Gymnasium.

Plenty of people knew something was up before Abrahamian made his
sort-of dramatic exit. After the semifinals, of the final bouts of the
morning session, Abrahamian tore through a line of reporters
repeatedly pounding the drywall and metal barricades that separated
the fuming grappler from the media.

I’m all for a little cool-off period. So fine. Be mad.

He apparently cooled off before the wrestleback portion of the
competition, where he put himself in position for a third-place tie
(for reasons I still don’t comprehend, wrestling awards two bronze
medals in each class).

That’s as much as I’ll defend him.

At 33, he’s obviously one of the elite wrestlers in his class, even
though he’s past his prime. In Sydney, he earned a bronze. He added a
silver medal in Athens four years later. Combine those results with a
pair of world championships in 2001 and 2002, the man really had one
feat left to accomplish on the mat.

And he didn’t do it. He should have begrudgingly taken the bronze.

Abrahamian isn’t the first one to think he got jobbed by the
officials, and won’t be the last to protest the result of a sporting
event. Remember, it wasn’t just one official that decided his fate,
either. Even so, the loser launched a one-man protest that would have
made Lou Piniella proud. Starting on the mat and continuing into the
media zone, the frenzy continued until he disappeared behind a door
that leads to the locker rooms.

A little background on how the results are determined: Each Olympic
wrestling bout is officiated by three judges ‘ beginning with a
referee on the mat. If a second official, seated matside agrees with
the referee, the points are awarded. If not, the mat chairman, seated
alongside the official, breaks the tie. If the mat controller
disagrees with that decision, the match can be stopped and the
officials huddle for an instant replay.

Even if he would have been awarded the win in the second period,
Abrahamian had still lost the first period and would have had to win
the third to go on.

A protest lodged immediately after the match was fine. Debating on
whether to continue the competition was fine.

Abrahamian went on not for himself, he said, but for his
teammates. Again, fine logic, if he had in fact kept the medal or
presented it to the Swedish Olympic Committee.

Abrahamian instead won a medal he didn’t want so he could make a
scene. And then blamed it on his teammates.

`I decided that I had come this far and didn’t want to let them down,
so I wrestled,’ Abrahamian said as he recapped the events. `I don’t
care about this medal,’ he said. He ended the interview by announcing
his retirement.

Let’s recap. Abrahamian’s best international performances were more
than six years ago. He earned seventh-place in the 2007 world
championships, and third in the last European competition. His best
world-showing was four years ago, and last world title came in 2002.

After a controversy, he wrestled for a medal because his fellow Swedes
wanted him to keep going. Abrahamian won it, then gave it back,
apparently a decision he made alone. Then he stole the spotlight from
a fellow competitor who toppled a Russian great and dominated the
silver medalist en route to Olympic gold.

Remember that gold medalist? The one who just achieved Olympic
greatness by knocking off the odds-on favorite, Aleksy Mishin from
Russia and dominated silver medalist Zoltan Fodor? While protesting he
thought was an unfair finish, Abrahamian effectively returned the
injustice to the champ, Andrea Minguzzi.

Abrahamian didn’t have any problem accepting the silver in Athens or
the gold medals at the world championships.

Now, FILA ‘ the organization Abrahamian called `corrupt,’ and the same
one that awarded him each of his previous championships ‘ keeps the
medal, the IOC will punish the Olympic delegation from Sweden and the
gold medal ceremony will be remembered as the one where he gave back
the medal, not the one where Minguzzi finally got his.

This is where the Olympic spirit lives. After the dust settled on this
Olympics controversy, Abrahamain is still only one complaining.