My club the Warriors Grappling Academy decided last year to re-join the
British Wrestling Association with the unauthorised MMA becoming very popular
we want to be linked with a Governing body which had a proper International
Backing i.e. FILA. FILA no longer just do Greco and Free Style wrestling it has
many wrestling styles within its organisation i.e. Traditional, Beach Wresting, Grappling,
Pankration, Amateur MMA. The Warriors is not a stranger to Olympic Free Style
President Martin Clarke was Treasurer for the Southern Area some 30 years ago
and organised a British Junior Championships at Herne Bay for the BWA, he also
won several medals in the wrestling style, his son John won a Silver in the
under 18 British in 1990. John qualified as a BWA Coach in his twenties but let
the qualification lapse he is now the British Sombo Federation National Coach
and the clubs MMA Coach
Yet as soon as we re-joined
we noticed there was very little being done in our part of the World and old acquaintances
of Martin began to complain about how Eastern Europeans were dominating British
Wrestling, there were reports of bad behavior at Wrestling tournaments etc.,
The Warriors decided under guidance from Martin Clarke not to get involved in
the internal Politics.
Many of our members enjoyed
watching Olympic wrestling and asked to compete so Martin was given the task of
contacting the BWA and offering the services of the Warriors permanent training
facility for some small competitions, plus he asked for a Referee to come to
the club and teach the rules all at the expense of the Warriors. He also
suggested that he would want to introduce an Instructors award scheme very
similar to the British Sombo Federation schemes where people with grappling
experience can attend a 5 hour course to qualify as Instructor, this gets
people involved. The BWA UKCC Course is over 3 separate Saturdays and held in
Salford Greater Manchester, this maybe a good course but what newcomer would
want to pay the Course fee, Travel cost and give up 3 weekends?
Now we have been told that the BWA have lost their funding
and as the BBC report below shows trouble has been brewing for some time and as
a member club we had no idea of the problems. None of our emails, faxes,
telephone calls have been acknowledged or even replied to, we occasionally get
emails from Yvonne Ball advertising courses Salford but when we reply to these
there is no answer.
Our dilemma is do we re-join the BWA? Rumour has it they
have collapsed and is about to be reformed under a different name and another
rumour is that the Eastern European have taken over another is the UKSport are
formulating one organisation for all grappling sports including Judo. As with
most rumours they are mostly 5% true 95% false but if the BWA are stop this
they need to inform their membership what is happening and quickly, I will admit
the formation of a Grappling Federation covering all grappling Sports is
appealing and sensible but will never happen as all of them are to entrenched.
So what are we to do I have been in contacted with the Welsh
National Wrestling Coach who I know he is actively promoting Wrestling and
asked him to come to Sittingbourne to do and Instructors and Referees Course.
With this knowledge I will incorporate Wrestling Instructors Award scheme in
the IBF/BCSA and try and promote the Great sport of Wrestling by applying the
old proverb “If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then
Muhammad must go to the mountain'
British
Wrestling shake-up after ‘disappointing’ Olympics
By Nick Hope
BBC Olympic sports reporter
|
British Wrestling has begun a major shake-up following
the end of its controversy-strewn Olympic cycle.
Continue reading the main story
“
The only way forward is to take a realistic view of
the many issues that we face
”
Malcolm Morley
British Wrestling chairman
Performance director Shaun Morley and head coach
Nikolai Kornieiev are both leaving the programme.
The pair oversaw the highly
criticised recruitment of Ukranian and Bulgarian-born athletes
in 2007.
British Wrestling had their allocation of three
host-nation places for London 2012 reduced to just
one for failing to meet performance targets.
Their only representative at the Olympics,
Ukrainian-born Olga Butkevych, was defeated in
her opening match .
"Olga's performance in the Games was somewhat
disappointing but she did her best under difficult and not always ideal
circumstances," said British Wrestling chairman Malcolm Morley, Shaun's
father.
In a statement on the
British Wrestling website, Morley refused to directly
criticise his former colleagues and instead expressed his frustration with the
decision of the British Olympic Association (BOA) to strip the sport of two
guaranteed places for their athletes at the London Games.
Play media
GB's Butkevych suffers wrestling defeat
"British Wrestling appealed the decision,"
said Morley.
"The FILA [The International Federation of
Associated Wrestling Styles] president [Raphael Martinetti] wrote a letter of
support that our named athletes were capable of a credible performance, but our
appeal was turned down."
Morley added: "Their refusal to grant British
Wrestling all three host nation places denied the BWA of the most significant
part of our legacy."
Coach Kornieiev's contract is not being renewed, while
Shaun Morley is understood to have resigned his position before being called to
account for the sport's apparent failings, at British Wrestling's annual
general meeting (AGM) on Saturday.
With the departure of the pair, the future of athletes
such as Krasimir Krastanov and English Commonwealth champion Myroslav Dykun,
who is currently
serving a two-year doping ban and were recruited under the
Kornieiev-Morley regime, is uncertain.
Olga's Olympics
Despite her opening-round defeat, Olga Butkevych
finished 11th out of 19-55kg wrestlers at the London Games.
Butkevych and fellow Ukrainian-born wrestler Yana
Stadnik were both initially recruited as sparring partners to work with British
athletes, but began competing for GB in 2007.
Stadnik's British citizenship bid failed to come
through in time for London 2012, but both she and Butkevych are due to be the
only GB representatives at the women's World Championships in Canada at the end
of September.
British Wrestling's performance director Shaun Morley
is leaving his post
Commonwealth bronze medallist Leon Rattigan, who is married
to Stadnik and who himself narrowly missed the performance
qualification criteria for this summer's Games, is taking time away from the
sport to consider his future.
"UK Sport funding will only be available to those
able to make a compelling case for their Rio potential," wrote British
Wrestling [BWA] chief executive Colin Nicholson in a statement on the
British Wrestling website .
Although he and Morley faced criticisms from fellow
BWA members at the sport's AGM on Saturday, it is believed they will remain
involved until at least November, when UK Sport will decide on what level of
funding they will receive for the four years leading into Rio 2016.
The sport admits that after failing to achieve their
minimum target of a top-eight place at the London Games there is the
"likelihood of significant reduction in funding from UK Sport" from
their current level of £1.435m heading into their next Olympic campaign.
"The only way forward is to take a realistic view
of the many issues that we face," said Malcolm Morley.
"[We need to] be positive instead of negative,
learn from the past, but remember history can never be changed."
