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 Wrestling: Upon further review Protest policy can be confusing, costly. Just ask Cary Kolat
Friday, September 29, 2000 By Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
SYDNEY, Australia -- The saying among the U.S. freestyle wrestling team and its coaches would be a good joke if the stakes weren't so serious. The only way you can be assured of having actually won a match when the official raises your hand, they agree, is to be ahead by at least five points.
Said Greg Strobel, one of the U.S. Olympic coaches, "Referees don't make bad calls when you're up by five points."
Such sentiments are little consolation for Cary Kolat, a Greene County native who had hoped to win an Olympic gold medal but instead didn't get out of the preliminary rounds because his opening-round victory was protested and had to be re-wrestled. Then he lost the rematch and his chance to advance in the tournament.
"There's nothing to make that hurt go away," said Judy Kolat, Cary's mother. "Cary knows when he loses a match. He makes no excuses. That's what the coaches told me he said, 'I did everything I was supposed to, but it was out of my hands.' "
Experience with the situation hasn't made this ordeal any easier for those close to Kolat, who have watched him go through the same thing for three consecutive seasons. Having two semifinal victories overturned by protest in the past two world championships, Strobel said, made Kolat more nervous than the typical wrestler competing in his first Olympics.
Not that Kolat thought such a circumstance could be repeated.
"That's what we kept telling him," Judy Kolat said. "At the Olympics, it will be different. At the Olympics, it will be fair."
The fact is, although wrestling is perhaps the ultimate in man-vs.-man competition, it is a judged sport, too. Not on the order of figure skating or gymnastics, of course, but determining how many points to award on many throws and holds is a judgment call.
Exposure points, for example, are awarded when a wrestler turns his opponent's shoulders to the mat, past 90 degrees. There are extra points for extra time held in that position. With the action happening fast and furious, the officials don't always have much time to make crucial decisions.
Kolat has already been partially responsible for two major changes in international wrestling rules, and if USA Wrestling executive director Jim Scherr has anything to say about it, Kolat's legacy could increase by one.
After the 1997 world championships, in which Kolat lost in the championship bout after his opponent kept untying his shoes to get rests as he re-tied them, the international governing body for wrestling, FILA, required wrestlers to tape their shoelaces shut.
In the 1998 world championships, both Kolat and superheavyweight Kerry McCoy had won semifinal bouts and left the arena expecting to come back for the gold-medal matches. Once back at the hotel, they discovered that their victories had been overturned on protest and they were now wrestling for third place, not the gold medal.
USA Wrestling lobbied for a rule change, and now protested bouts are re-wrestled, giving the wrestlers a chance to decide the outcome on the mat.
"We pressured heavily to have the opportunity to re-wrestle," Scherr said. "Now we're going to use this to try to have a change in the entire procedure, to do away with the protest. It's too hard on a wrestler to come back and have to wrestle the match again.
"You're never going to remove human error entirely from the officiating in athletic contests. But that doesn't mean you should be able to protest it."
Few sports have anything equivalent to the protest. Especially considering that each match is videotaped matside and officials are able to review scoring decisions -- especially ones in flurries of action -- immediately. ("That's something they should be doing more of," Scherr said.)
That immediate decision is equivalent to the NFL's instant replay rule. The protest goes way beyond that.
Said Scherr, "It's like going to the commissioner or the league office after the game and telling them the opponent really didn't make that field goal and having them say, 'You're right, let's play that game again.' "
To protest a match, application must be made within 30 minutes. The cost is $500, which is returned if the protest is upheld. (The cost, Scherr said, is to discourage the procedure.)
The videotape of the match is then watched by FILA's protest committee, which is comprised of five members, although neither Strobel nor Scherr was sure exactly who makes up the panel. Strobel said the match is essentially re-scored, although Scherr indicated that wasn't the way the rules define the situation.
Each country involved in the protest can send a representative to the meeting, although they don't have any say in the matter.
"John Smith's our rep in there," Strobel said. He laughed. "He's a six-time world champion, he knows wrestling. That's a little added bit of impact."
When Brandon Slay's overtime victory over Russia's Bouvaissa Saitev, the four-time world champion and defending Olympic champion, was protested in the session after Kolat's, USA Wrestling opted to use an even larger show of force -- four-time Olympic medalist Bruce Baumgartner.
"We said, 'Baumgartner, you get over there by him," Strobel said, laughing again. "With two high-profile guys, that's the U.S. saying, 'Do the right thing.' "
Russia's protest was denied, something Strobel thought had to do more with the move in question -- a clean takedown, in his opinion -- than the lobbying. But you never know.
"The concern was that Saitev is such a high-profile guy, and they already lost their high-profile guy in Greco [three-time Olympic gold-medal winner Alexander Karelin, who lost to American Rulon Gardner in the final]," Strobel said. "I thought, 'Man, if there's a way for them to give it to Saitev, they might. But I think the protest committee had an honest group."
Which is no comfort to Kolat, who has come back from major disappointments before, but not quite on this scale.
"He's got an inner drive," Strobel said. "He wanted to be the best in the U.S., and he proved that. He wants to be the best in the world, and he's not quite proved that. He's beaten all the best in the world, but that isn't a medal.
"And boy, when he's hot he's fun to watch. Whew."
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