Good story of 120kilo 37 yr old olympic Canadian Jewish wrestler

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080418.wspt-wrestler-18/BNStory/    









CALGARY — He waited in line with the other wrestlers, knowing full well what would happen next. When his turn came, he would step forward onto a scale, and in the time it took to record his weight of 120 kilograms (264.5 pounds), he would qualify for the Beijing Summer Olympics.



It would be that simple. He wouldn't even have to win a match.



Yet Ari Taub couldn't bring himself to believe it, almost didn't want to believe it. He'd been tantalizingly close before.



In 1992, he made the Canadian Olympic team, even received his congratulatory letter from Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, only to be told, "Wait a second." Another freestyle wrestler had forced a match against Taub, with the winner going to Barcelona.



Taub lost. He couldn't bring himself to watch the Games on television.



Months later, Taub was diagnosed with osteophytes (bone spurs) and a narrowing of the spinal canal in his neck. A neurologist told him to either forget about wrestling or plan on being a quadriplegic. He was 22. He decided to quit the sport and go to law school.



By 2000, Taub was in the throes of another medical dilemma, chronic fatigue syndrome. He had to quit his job as an associate lawyer with a Calgary firm. He'd get up in the morning and take the garbage outside, then collapse in bed from exhaustion.



He watched the Sydney Olympics on television.



While being treated for chronic fatigue, Taub was re-examined and informed that his spinal canal was no more susceptible to injury than anyone else's, meaning he could return to wrestling. After a 10-year absence, Taub made his comeback, and in 2004 he won the Canadian Olympic qualifying trials in Greco-Roman wrestling, only to be told, "Wait a second." He hadn't won enough international matches, so he had to stay home and watch the Athens Olympics on television.



Then came that inexplicably rewarding moment when the stars aligned for Taub as if paying him back for all the wretched karma he'd endured. Two Greco-Roman wrestlers, one from the United States and the other from Cuba, had stamped their tickets to Beijing by each winning a medal at the 2007 world championships.



To qualify for the Olympics as the third Pan-American wrestler in the heavyweight class, Canada's first in Greco since 1996, all Taub had to do was attend last month's Pan-Am championships in Colorado Springs, Colo., and weigh in.



He stepped on the scale, and meet officials gave their approval. And Ari Taub, a first-time Olympian at the age of 37, was filled not with joy or satisfaction, but with uncertainty.



"I'm still not sure they won't change the rules to take it away," he said. "It hasn't been easy."



Most Canadian Olympic athletes have a hard-luck tale to spin. They're either overstretched or underappreciated, which is especially true for the country's Summer Olympians, who have watched a load of government cash directed to their winter brethren and the coming Vancouver Olympics.



But few athletes, summer or winter, have been knocked down and virtually forgotten the way Ari Taub has. His story involves rotten luck, grim timing and a near crippling finishing move: "Sorry, no funding for you."



Still, what speaks loudest is Taub's insatiable desire to qualify for the Games and compete at his best. For the past 16 years, he has exemplified the Olympic ideals of perseverance, sportsmanship and strength in the face of defeat without ever going to an Olympics.



For doing that, Taub said in jest, his parents believe he has "a mental deficiency."



"I choose to look back at everything I've been through and wonder what my life would be if it hadn't been difficult," Taub said. "Most of my significant life lessons have come through sport. I know I don't want to be at the closing ceremonies in Beijing saying I should have done more to better prepare myself. ... This is it for me."



Taub is a glutton for doing more. He runs a small legal firm specializing in corporate and real-estate law, but when he's training and competing, he's not earning money.



He has a wife and two sets of twins, two girls and two boys, all under seven. He trains religiously, eats as ordered and sleeps in a specially tailored, temperature-controlled room with ear plugs, a facemask and blacked-out blinds to ensure a restful night.



Realistically, there are not enough hours in a day for Taub to accomplish everything on his agenda. Nor is there enough money for him to train, travel and compete in a sport that offers no assistance unless a Greco athlete finishes in the top eight in the world, a nearly impossible task without proper support to start with.



That means anyone who wrestles Greco in Canada does so at his or her expense. There is no help from the Canadian Amateur Wrestling Association. Even the head coach of the Canadian national Greco team is a volunteer who uses his personal credit card to book flights for athletes and is ever hopeful he'll be repaid.



"My athletes are going to Italy [for a pre-Beijing training camp]," said Don Ryan, who also coaches at the University of New Brunswick. "We'll meet up over there and share cabs. That's the way we have to do it."



Taub has been managing his career since his return in 2002. Last season, he says, he spent $50,000 to train and that his costs this season will be close to $90,000. A portion of that money has gone toward having a Bulgarian coach and training partner relocate to Calgary so they can hone Taub's skills. That alone is costing Taub $2,000 a week.



"If you win the freestyle trials, you're carded," Taub said. "There's no such policy for Greco. I've lodged a formal protest [with CAWA]."



Clive Llewellyn is a former Olympic wrestler, coach and now the president of CAWA. On top of that, he is a Calgary lawyer and a friend of Taub dating back almost 20 years.



Llewellyn is acutely aware of Taub's travails and the lack of support for Olympic athletes. In 1976, Llewellyn competed at the Montreal Olympics, but had no money after the Games and had to hitchhike back to Toronto, where his parents lived. He qualified for the Moscow Olympics in 1980, but wasn't allowed to compete because of the boycott by Canada and the United States.



"The men's budget was approximately $260,000 [last year]," said Llewellyn, whose organization took a $120,000 budget cut in February because Sport Canada didn't see much medal potential from wrestling. "You take out $120,000, that has almost halved it."



The CAWA never made an active decision to neglect Greco, but it happened nonetheless. As freestyle grew from a YMCA-centred sport to a university sport to one that now includes women at the Olympics, it simply became the preferred discipline. Eventually, almost everything went to freestyle because Canada wasn't expected to produce a world-class Greco wrestler of Taub's ability.



"It's not a question of CAWA actively working against Ari," said Llewellyn, who has been trying to come up with a few thousand dollars for Taub's training costs. "Ari needs money for the Olympics, but we're really robbing Peter to pay Paul every day."



Taub shrugged his shoulders in response. "I keep adding to the mortgage [on his home]," he said. "What else can I do?"



Despite everything he's grappled with, Taub doesn't come off sounding bitter or twisted. In describing his plight, he is factual and calm and mentions that being older has given him a greater appreciation for finally qualifying for the Olympics.



His wife, Sarah Howell, has another take on her husband's attitude.



"He's the most stubborn man I've ever met," she said. "I personally don't know anyone else who'd be doing this after facing all the obstacles he's faced."



Howell has been there for all of it: from Taub losing his Olympic berth in 1992 to a late challenger who threatened legal action against the CAWA if he wasn't allowed a wrestle-off (which Taub lost) to the neck injury and chronic fatigue that almost pinned Taub for good.



The neck concerns disappeared after a magnetic resonance imaging exam showed Taub could compete again. The chronic fatigue issue, however, was so severe Taub was bedridden for 18 months. Howell, a former middle-distance runner who competed on the Canadian national team — she met Taub while the two were attending Simon Fraser University in 1991 — worried for her husband and at times suggested he forget about wrestling.



"I've said to him, 'I wish you'd just pack it in.' " Howell said. "It was because I felt so bad for him. Most of the time, I've tried to say, 'It's up to you and I fully support any decision you make.' "



While recovering from chronic fatigue, Taub wandered over to the University of Calgary, where he watched wrestling practices. As he began to feel better, he helped head coach Mitch Ostberg tutor his heavyweights. Encouraged by his doctors to exercise, Taub began working out. The more he did, the more he wanted to wrestle.



By 2002, 10 years removed from his last competition, he felt ready to return. Amazingly, he won the 2004 Canadian Olympic trials. But without a handful of top international results, he was told he couldn't go to Athens. Beijing would be his last chance.



"Greco rules perfectly suit my strengths," he explained. "In Greco, I'm good at the things you need to be good at to be the best in the world. I may be old, but I'm in the right group. That's kept me going."



When Taub's easy qualifying for Beijing was reported, it was viewed as a fluke. Guy shows up, gets to go to the Olympics. News outlets gave it the man-bites-dog oddity treatment with no mention of Taub's ordeals or the bull-headedness that has prevented him from packing it in.



Taub admits he caught a break in Colorado Springs, one that has happened before for wrestlers from other countries. But since his return to the sport in 2002, he has travelled to a multitude of tournaments, paid his own way, won matches, made the podium and butted heads with Canadian wrestling administrators to the point where just getting to the Olympics should come with a medal all its own.



To this point, it's been a fight he values for a goal he cherishes.



"I have a great life — kids, wife, a business," Taub said. "Who else gets to be 37, have a real job and train for the Olympics? I'm old enough to understand it's all worth it."


Greco-Roman primer

The difference between freestyle wrestling and Greco-Roman is all in the legs.

In Greco, a competitor cannot attack his opponent's legs nor can he use his own legs to trip or execute other moves. Instead, Greco wrestlers rely on their upper-body strength, leverage and takedowns, which are scored on a one-to-five-point basis.

The big point getter comes via throws of grand amplitude. This happens when a wrestler "brings his opponent off the mat and controls him so that his feet go directly above his head."

The other notable difference is in the match format. In freestyle, wrestlers compete for three, two-minute periods. In Greco, the referee will blow his whistle after one minute so that one wrestler drops to his hands and knees on the mat and the other stands on either side of him and tries for a throw.

The wrestlers switch positions when the referee blows his whistle again 30 seconds later.




With all his health problems he finally made it