Many Americans involved with Olympic wrestling competition in Rio de Janeiro
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by Gary Abbott, USA Wrestling
Photos of announcer Ken Berger, referee Zach Errett and photographer Tony Rotundo by Larry Slater.
Team USA is a lot larger than the 14 athletes who have stepped on the Olympic wrestling mats to represent our nation in competition. There are numerous people from the United States who are involved in all kinds of aspects of the Olympic wrestling event, all in different roles, all who make a difference. When you go through the Olympic wrestling venue, there are many familiar faces who are sharing the experience.
It will not be possible to list all of the Americans involved in wrestling in Rio, but we would like to note those who we have had daily contact with. Apologies to anybody we have missed.
Jason Bryant, English speaking announcer for wrestling – Jason is working his first Olympics behind the PA microphone, doing the English announcing for the venue. He has done numerous major events in the USA for years, and was selected for this role after working wrestling’s Olympic Test Event in Rio. It was his voice that announced Helen Maroulis as the Olympic champion, and he had other historic calls, including Kaori Icho’s fourth Olympic gold.
Ken Berger, Olympic Radio and production consultant – Ken is getting to talk wrestling all day long on the Olympic radio broadcast of the competition in the venue. He is working with a Brazilian with a wrestling background who is making the call in Portuguese. Kenny also is helping as a production consultant, having been the English speaking announcer at the last two Olympics and also having had other Olympic production roles.
Doug Brooker, Olympic Broadcasting Service – Doug runs the operation which produces the live TV feed used by all of the international broadcasters coming out of Carioca 2 arena (wrestling and judo). Doug was the guy who did Iowa Public TV for many years and is now putting together wrestling broadcasts for the Big Ten Network. Doug works with a very diverse crew from many nations, all putting out the video the entire world gets to see. He spends time in the broadcast truck outside the arena and also in the venue.
Larry Slater, John Sachs, Tony Rotundo, Robbert Wijtman, Wrestling Photographers – The USA is blessed to have some of the best wrestling photographers on the planet, people who travel the nation and the world to bring images of our sport and its heroes to the public. They do this as a hobby, or better described as a passion, giving their time and efforts to the sport they love. Larry Slater, who in 2005 decided to go to the World Championships to shoot the American wrestlers, is in his third Games. John Sachs, Tony Rotundo and Robbert Wijtman are also everywhere bringing the action to you. We can’t say thank you enough. Check out their galleries and enjoy.
Tim Foley, Andrew Hipps, Eric Olanowski, Bill May, United World Wrestling media crew – There is a team of wrestling writers and communicators who are putting together the public relations efforts and the extensive website and social media coverage of Olympic wrestling for United World Wrestling. Tim Foley (also known as T.R. Foley) is UWW’s man in charge of pulling all of this together. Foley wrestled for Virginia and is a regular columnist for InterMat. Working as a team in the press tribune include Andrew Hipps, who runs InterMat, Eric Olanowski, a talented young journalist from Michigan and Bill May, a Minnesota native who worked many years in Japan and is now in the Czech Republic. Bill does UWW’s rankings and major event coverage.
Gordon Templeman, United World Wrestling staffer – Gordan works full-time for United World Wrestling in its communications and marketing efforts. He deals with sponsors and journalists and other aspects of the public parts of UWW operations. Gordon hails from Virginia, and is based in UWW headquarters in Switzerland.
Bryan Van Kley, Shane Sparks, Craig Sesker, Luke Meredith, Anne Sachs, Wrestling journalists – There have been many journalists from the United States in the wrestling venue in Rio, covering a variety of stories about our athletes. These four are here covering wrestling every day. Van Kley owns WIN Magazine. Shane Sparks works for Trackwrestling which is now owned by NBC Sports. Craig Sesker is writing for a variety of media outlets including numerous hometown publications. Luke Meredith works for AP in Iowa, but is assigned as the wrestling reporter for the Olympics and throughout the year. Anne Sachs is with Tech-Fall.com. Outside of the Japanese contingent, we have seen more American journalists in the venue than from any other nation.
John Smith, Jason Knapp, Mike Finn, Michael Molinari, NBC wrestling crew – These great people were mentioned in one of the Abbott Rio Blogs earlier this week for their work on the NBC broadcasts of wrestling. John Smith’s day job is head coach at Oklahoma State (and an owner of two Olympic golds). Jason Knapp works within the NBC broadcast family, and has been announcing our wrestling events for years. Mike Finn edits WIN Magazine and is their wrestling expert researcher. Michael Molinari has been producing and directing many wrestling events in the past with this crew. They aren’t in the venue during the matches, but have come down in between sessions to spend time with our team.
Stan Dziedzic, United World Wrestling Vice-President – An Olympic medalist and World champion as an athlete, and a national freestyle coach for many years, Dziedzic is one of the key volunteer leaders on the UWW Board. He put together and moderated the UWW Hall of Fame inductions at “Wrestling House” prior to the start of the wrestling event. A past USA Wrestling president, Dziedzic has been a key leader in wrestling’s transformation under UWW president Nenad Lalovic.
Jim Scherr, UWW leader and wrestling leader – Jim Scherr has done it all with the Olympics and wrestling. He was an Olympic wrestling athlete. He was USA Wrestling’s Executive Director for 10 years. He was CEO of the U.S. Olympic Committee. He was a leader in the Keep Olympic Wrestling movement. He has served in numerous roles with United World Wrestling.
Carl Dambman, Chaplain in the Olympic Village – Carl has been involved in many past Olympics in the chaplain role. He js one of the Protestant Chaplains assigned to the Olympic Village, working with athletes from many nations. He is affiliated with Athletes in Action, and was at the Lonier Training Center with the AIA media crew when they came out and interviewed some of the USA athletes prior to the start of wrestling here.
Ricardo Liborio, volunteer in Carioca 2 – Liborio has been a Grappling coach for USA Wrestling and runs the American Top Team program in Coconut Creek, Florida, training many of the top athletes in MMA. Working with Olympian Steve Mocco, he also has wrestling as part of his club’s activities. Liborio is a legend in Grappling. Originally from Brazil, he is staying with family here so he could be part of our sport. Ricardo is moving up to Orlando and will be building a wrestling and judo club there, in addition to his MMA activities.
Anibal Nieves, who coached Haiti’s Asnage Castelli – You may remember Anibal as a wrestler for Puerto Rico, as a coach for men and women wrestlers, and as the USA Wrestling state chairperson for Massachusetts. Anibal is coaching one of his students, Asnage Castelli of Haiti, who is a coach along with Nieves at a Junior College in Springfield, Mass. Castelli was the flagbearer for Haiti and its first Olympic wrestler, with Nieves in his corner.
Mallory Velte and Carlene Sluberski, training partners for Canada – Why would Canada bring a couple of Americans to help train their women wrestlers? The answer is simple. Mallory Velte, a Californian, attends Simon Fraser University in Canada and is helping one of her teammates. Sluberski, who wrestled at Brock University in Canada, is also helping a teammate.
Nikko Triggas, Training partner for Norway – A Californian who went to Ohio State and wrestles Greco for the USA, Triggas was brought by the Norwegians to serve as a training partner for their eventual Greco-Roman Olympic bronze medalist Stig Andre Berg. The Norwegians have trained with the USA in the past, and that is where that connection was created.
Zach Errett and Sam Julian, Olympic Referees – Two outstanding international wrestling referees are part of the wrestling officiating crew here in Rio, Zach Errett and Sam Julian. You may be seeing Sam a bit more on the broadcasts because he is up on the platform as the referee for many matches. Errett is one of the top dogs among the officials as an instructor, and has been on the mat or matside for many of the major matches going on. The USA has the best wrestling officials association in the world, and these are our two all-stars selected for these Games.
Kiki Kelley, Kyra Barry, Andy Barth, USA Team Leaders – What can you say about this trio of superstars? They have committed for years to their USA Wrestling team, giving completely of themselves in every possible way for the USA athletes and coaches. Kelley handles Greco-Roman, Barry is with women’s freestyle and Barth is with our men’s freestylers. They do anything and everything. They are the backbone of our program. All three have done some great things to assist the USA Wrestling Communications team, in ways both large and small.
Families, friends and fans – There is no accident that you see a lot of U.S. flags and hear many chants of “USA, USA, USA” in the crowd each day. We have a healthy contingent of family, friends and fans who are here to support our teams. People forget that each of our Olympians have a family and support group behind them, and they have come out in force. And then there are our fans, some who love wrestling enough to come to Brazil, wear red-white-and-blue clothing, make banners, wave flags and shout for our guys and gals. This is an essential group to our team’s success,
Team Volunteers – We put the names of the many official volunteers who are here in Rio in our Media Guide, including coaches, medical staff, video experts, and other roles. Official coaches include Chris Saba, Mark Halvorson, Afsoon Johnston, Valentin Kalika, Tom Brands, Mark Manning and Lou Rosselli. Personal Coaches include Herb House, Kevin Black, Mike Duroe, Mike Eierman, Cody Sanderson, Bryan Snyder. Our medical team includes Rod Rodriguez, Carrie Moore, Darryl Miller, Dr. A.J. Monseau. We get video support from Del Hawkins and message therapy from Javier Fernandez. We have had chiropractors Dr. Kristin Kells and Dr. Fred Roberto here. One of the doctors with UWW and always active with USA Wrestling is Dr. Bernie Feldman
Training partners – These are the people, many of who are good enough on the mat to be members of this team, who came to give their entire time and effort to preparing our athletes in training and in warmups. You have to be a great team player to put the Olympian first and help them as needed. Kudos to Ravaughn Perkins, Joe Rau, Mohammed Abdel Fatah, Clarissa Chun, Becka Leathers, Tamyra Mensah, Julia Salata, Spencer Lee, Logan Stieber, Robert Kokesh, David Taylor, Richard Perry and Connor Medbery for being here for the team.
National Coaches – These men and women work full-time for USA Wrestling as National Coaches, and they are the people responsible for getting our athletes prepared and working with them during competition. You see many of them out on the mat with athletes, although all of them are in the back of house doing everything they can for the wrestlers. Matt Lindland, Terry Steiner and Bruce Burnett are the head coaches. Other National Coaches here are Momir Petkovic, Erin Tomeo, Emma Randall, Maxim Molonov, Bill Zadick and Brandon Slay.
USA Wrestling staff – Led by our Executive Director Rich Bender, our staff team in a variety of work roles includes Associate Executive Director Les Gutches, Communications staff Richard Immel and Gary Abbott, National Teams managers Cody Bickley and Jaimie McNab, Development staff Harris Kalofonos, Ryan Johnson, Alex Pernice and Steve Fraser.
Others – This group of Americans are just the ones who our Commuications staff have seen in its regular activities here in Rio. We understand we have missed some people. We will add them to the story. Every American affiliated with USA Wrestling here in Rio is important and appreciated.
Team USA is a lot larger than the 14 athletes who have stepped on the Olympic wrestling mats to represent our nation in competition. There are numerous people from the United States who are involved in all kinds of aspects of the Olympic wrestling event, all in different roles, all who make a difference. When you go through the Olympic wrestling venue, there are many familiar faces who are sharing the experience.
It will not be possible to list all of the Americans involved in wrestling in Rio, but we would like to note those who we have had daily contact with. Apologies to anybody we have missed.
Jason Bryant, English speaking announcer for wrestling – Jason is working his first Olympics behind the PA microphone, doing the English announcing for the venue. He has done numerous major events in the USA for years, and was selected for this role after working wrestling’s Olympic Test Event in Rio. It was his voice that announced Helen Maroulis as the Olympic champion, and he had other historic calls, including Kaori Icho’s fourth Olympic gold.
Ken Berger, Olympic Radio and production consultant – Ken is getting to talk wrestling all day long on the Olympic radio broadcast of the competition in the venue. He is working with a Brazilian with a wrestling background who is making the call in Portuguese. Kenny also is helping as a production consultant, having been the English speaking announcer at the last two Olympics and also having had other Olympic production roles.
Doug Brooker, Olympic Broadcasting Service – Doug runs the operation which produces the live TV feed used by all of the international broadcasters coming out of Carioca 2 arena (wrestling and judo). Doug was the guy who did Iowa Public TV for many years and is now putting together wrestling broadcasts for the Big Ten Network. Doug works with a very diverse crew from many nations, all putting out the video the entire world gets to see. He spends time in the broadcast truck outside the arena and also in the venue.
Larry Slater, John Sachs, Tony Rotundo, Robbert Wijtman, Wrestling Photographers – The USA is blessed to have some of the best wrestling photographers on the planet, people who travel the nation and the world to bring images of our sport and its heroes to the public. They do this as a hobby, or better described as a passion, giving their time and efforts to the sport they love. Larry Slater, who in 2005 decided to go to the World Championships to shoot the American wrestlers, is in his third Games. John Sachs, Tony Rotundo and Robbert Wijtman are also everywhere bringing the action to you. We can’t say thank you enough. Check out their galleries and enjoy.
Tim Foley, Andrew Hipps, Eric Olanowski, Bill May, United World Wrestling media crew – There is a team of wrestling writers and communicators who are putting together the public relations efforts and the extensive website and social media coverage of Olympic wrestling for United World Wrestling. Tim Foley (also known as T.R. Foley) is UWW’s man in charge of pulling all of this together. Foley wrestled for Virginia and is a regular columnist for InterMat. Working as a team in the press tribune include Andrew Hipps, who runs InterMat, Eric Olanowski, a talented young journalist from Michigan and Bill May, a Minnesota native who worked many years in Japan and is now in the Czech Republic. Bill does UWW’s rankings and major event coverage.
Gordon Templeman, United World Wrestling staffer – Gordan works full-time for United World Wrestling in its communications and marketing efforts. He deals with sponsors and journalists and other aspects of the public parts of UWW operations. Gordon hails from Virginia, and is based in UWW headquarters in Switzerland.
Bryan Van Kley, Shane Sparks, Craig Sesker, Luke Meredith, Anne Sachs, Wrestling journalists – There have been many journalists from the United States in the wrestling venue in Rio, covering a variety of stories about our athletes. These four are here covering wrestling every day. Van Kley owns WIN Magazine. Shane Sparks works for Trackwrestling which is now owned by NBC Sports. Craig Sesker is writing for a variety of media outlets including numerous hometown publications. Luke Meredith works for AP in Iowa, but is assigned as the wrestling reporter for the Olympics and throughout the year. Anne Sachs is with Tech-Fall.com. Outside of the Japanese contingent, we have seen more American journalists in the venue than from any other nation.
John Smith, Jason Knapp, Mike Finn, Michael Molinari, NBC wrestling crew – These great people were mentioned in one of the Abbott Rio Blogs earlier this week for their work on the NBC broadcasts of wrestling. John Smith’s day job is head coach at Oklahoma State (and an owner of two Olympic golds). Jason Knapp works within the NBC broadcast family, and has been announcing our wrestling events for years. Mike Finn edits WIN Magazine and is their wrestling expert researcher. Michael Molinari has been producing and directing many wrestling events in the past with this crew. They aren’t in the venue during the matches, but have come down in between sessions to spend time with our team.
Stan Dziedzic, United World Wrestling Vice-President – An Olympic medalist and World champion as an athlete, and a national freestyle coach for many years, Dziedzic is one of the key volunteer leaders on the UWW Board. He put together and moderated the UWW Hall of Fame inductions at “Wrestling House” prior to the start of the wrestling event. A past USA Wrestling president, Dziedzic has been a key leader in wrestling’s transformation under UWW president Nenad Lalovic.
Jim Scherr, UWW leader and wrestling leader – Jim Scherr has done it all with the Olympics and wrestling. He was an Olympic wrestling athlete. He was USA Wrestling’s Executive Director for 10 years. He was CEO of the U.S. Olympic Committee. He was a leader in the Keep Olympic Wrestling movement. He has served in numerous roles with United World Wrestling.
Carl Dambman, Chaplain in the Olympic Village – Carl has been involved in many past Olympics in the chaplain role. He js one of the Protestant Chaplains assigned to the Olympic Village, working with athletes from many nations. He is affiliated with Athletes in Action, and was at the Lonier Training Center with the AIA media crew when they came out and interviewed some of the USA athletes prior to the start of wrestling here.
Ricardo Liborio, volunteer in Carioca 2 – Liborio has been a Grappling coach for USA Wrestling and runs the American Top Team program in Coconut Creek, Florida, training many of the top athletes in MMA. Working with Olympian Steve Mocco, he also has wrestling as part of his club’s activities. Liborio is a legend in Grappling. Originally from Brazil, he is staying with family here so he could be part of our sport. Ricardo is moving up to Orlando and will be building a wrestling and judo club there, in addition to his MMA activities.
Anibal Nieves, who coached Haiti’s Asnage Castelli – You may remember Anibal as a wrestler for Puerto Rico, as a coach for men and women wrestlers, and as the USA Wrestling state chairperson for Massachusetts. Anibal is coaching one of his students, Asnage Castelli of Haiti, who is a coach along with Nieves at a Junior College in Springfield, Mass. Castelli was the flagbearer for Haiti and its first Olympic wrestler, with Nieves in his corner.
Mallory Velte and Carlene Sluberski, training partners for Canada – Why would Canada bring a couple of Americans to help train their women wrestlers? The answer is simple. Mallory Velte, a Californian, attends Simon Fraser University in Canada and is helping one of her teammates. Sluberski, who wrestled at Brock University in Canada, is also helping a teammate.
Nikko Triggas, Training partner for Norway – A Californian who went to Ohio State and wrestles Greco for the USA, Triggas was brought by the Norwegians to serve as a training partner for their eventual Greco-Roman Olympic bronze medalist Stig Andre Berg. The Norwegians have trained with the USA in the past, and that is where that connection was created.
Zach Errett and Sam Julian, Olympic Referees – Two outstanding international wrestling referees are part of the wrestling officiating crew here in Rio, Zach Errett and Sam Julian. You may be seeing Sam a bit more on the broadcasts because he is up on the platform as the referee for many matches. Errett is one of the top dogs among the officials as an instructor, and has been on the mat or matside for many of the major matches going on. The USA has the best wrestling officials association in the world, and these are our two all-stars selected for these Games.
Kiki Kelley, Kyra Barry, Andy Barth, USA Team Leaders – What can you say about this trio of superstars? They have committed for years to their USA Wrestling team, giving completely of themselves in every possible way for the USA athletes and coaches. Kelley handles Greco-Roman, Barry is with women’s freestyle and Barth is with our men’s freestylers. They do anything and everything. They are the backbone of our program. All three have done some great things to assist the USA Wrestling Communications team, in ways both large and small.
Families, friends and fans – There is no accident that you see a lot of U.S. flags and hear many chants of “USA, USA, USA” in the crowd each day. We have a healthy contingent of family, friends and fans who are here to support our teams. People forget that each of our Olympians have a family and support group behind them, and they have come out in force. And then there are our fans, some who love wrestling enough to come to Brazil, wear red-white-and-blue clothing, make banners, wave flags and shout for our guys and gals. This is an essential group to our team’s success,
Team Volunteers – We put the names of the many official volunteers who are here in Rio in our Media Guide, including coaches, medical staff, video experts, and other roles. Official coaches include Chris Saba, Mark Halvorson, Afsoon Johnston, Valentin Kalika, Tom Brands, Mark Manning and Lou Rosselli. Personal Coaches include Herb House, Kevin Black, Mike Duroe, Mike Eierman, Cody Sanderson, Bryan Snyder. Our medical team includes Rod Rodriguez, Carrie Moore, Darryl Miller, Dr. A.J. Monseau. We get video support from Del Hawkins and message therapy from Javier Fernandez. We have had chiropractors Dr. Kristin Kells and Dr. Fred Roberto here. One of the doctors with UWW and always active with USA Wrestling is Dr. Bernie Feldman
Training partners – These are the people, many of who are good enough on the mat to be members of this team, who came to give their entire time and effort to preparing our athletes in training and in warmups. You have to be a great team player to put the Olympian first and help them as needed. Kudos to Ravaughn Perkins, Joe Rau, Mohammed Abdel Fatah, Clarissa Chun, Becka Leathers, Tamyra Mensah, Julia Salata, Spencer Lee, Logan Stieber, Robert Kokesh, David Taylor, Richard Perry and Connor Medbery for being here for the team.
National Coaches – These men and women work full-time for USA Wrestling as National Coaches, and they are the people responsible for getting our athletes prepared and working with them during competition. You see many of them out on the mat with athletes, although all of them are in the back of house doing everything they can for the wrestlers. Matt Lindland, Terry Steiner and Bruce Burnett are the head coaches. Other National Coaches here are Momir Petkovic, Erin Tomeo, Emma Randall, Maxim Molonov, Bill Zadick and Brandon Slay.
USA Wrestling staff – Led by our Executive Director Rich Bender, our staff team in a variety of work roles includes Associate Executive Director Les Gutches, Communications staff Richard Immel and Gary Abbott, National Teams managers Cody Bickley and Jaimie McNab, Development staff Harris Kalofonos, Ryan Johnson, Alex Pernice and Steve Fraser.
Others – This group of Americans are just the ones who our Commuications staff have seen in its regular activities here in Rio. We understand we have missed some people. We will add them to the story. Every American affiliated with USA Wrestling here in Rio is important and appreciated.
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