By Jason Bryant, W.I.N. Columnist

I remember it fairly distinctly. It was a feeling of confusion and borderline wonderment.

               Flashing back to the 2004 Olympic Team Trials at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, I watched Keith Sieracki beat Darryl Christian in a best-of-three championship series to claim, not a berth in the Olympics, but the top spot on the U.S. National Team.

            Back then, I didn’t know how the Olympic qualification worked, primarily due to my relative ignorance about the nuances of international wrestling.

            So it goes for many wrestling fans in the country, those who will follow our post-collegiate stars on to the next level, but with the way FILA has contorted the rules, they do it in passing.

            But when it comes to a U.S. freestyle weight not qualifying for the Olympics, it raises an eyebrow. How can a great wrestling country like the U.S., a country in which our folkstyle wrestling emphasizes takedowns and tenacity, not qualify?

            It’s not the lack of talent, and pardon the phrase, but we all know America’s got talent.

            While six of the seven freestyle weights will compete in Beijing, Greco-Roman still has two weights to qualify, while the women’s have just one of their four Olympic weights left.

            The 2003 World Championships served as the first qualification for the 2004 Games. Jamill Kelly’s placement at the Worlds in New York City wasn’t enough to get 66 kilos qualified, but through Olympic qualifiers in 2004, the weight eventually got qualified.

            Ironically, Kelly ended up taking the silver in a weight he didn’t himself qualify for the Games.

            But back then, the draw system was different. Now, the follow the leader bracketing appears to have no method when it comes to helping qualify wrestlers.

            The most recent qualifier in Poland, where Nate Gallick failed to place in the top three, seemed to have more relevance in its draw system than the 2007 World Championships in Baku.

            Relevance, you say?

            Well, we all know FILA has made it known, at least by the organization’s actions, they do not concern themselves with anyone other than the champion. A first-round match against the eventual champion can end up helping a wrestler from a traditionally-weak country qualify.

            A random draw seems to make zero sense, especially the year before the Olympics. With a draw as important as the one in Baku, one upset would disrupt the balance of the world’s most important sporting event. There are no true wrestlebacks, just a tough-to-pronounce French word: repechage.

            Follow-the-leader bracketing isn’t, pardon the pun, foreign to U.S. wrestling fans. For years, it was the standard with bracketed tournaments, but the “carry” usually came with wrestlers reaching at least the quarterfinals or semifinals.

            Internationally, it’s just the finals.

            Wouldn’t it make sense for FILA to have a true wrestleback in those years before the Olympics. I think it would, I’m sure many others might feel the same.

            I’m not busting my butt to work towards Olympic gold, but observationally, we did have our chances. But one poor match at the World level can put any nation, not just the U.S., into a sometimes insurmountable quest just to qualify.

            I’m not going to point blame at Gallick or former world silver medalist Mike Zadick, but some of the flaws in FILA’s bracketing system have much to do with the perception of international wrestling.

            Cutting the weights down from 10 to seven has also lead to continued problems with the Olympic teams, not just at the U.S., but internationally. Wrestlers like Cary Kolat, Lincoln McIllravy and Canadian Daniel Igali saw their more natural weights vanish, and with it, the medals, the qualification, and in some cases, the fans.

            Rule changes prior to the 2005 World Team Trials made everyone an international novice. Then changes to the pool system did it to us again.

            “I do not have the words to express my feelings of devastation for all of our 60 kg athletes,” said National Freestyle Coach Kevin Jackson in a USA Wrestling press release on May 3.

            What is Shawn Bunch supposed to fight for now? The 2008 U.S. Senior National freestyle champion now has to wait another four years for his international season to mean more.

            And it’s not just Bunch, it’s Gallick and Zadick, too. It’s Coleman Scott, Teyon Ware, and former World Teamer Michael Lightner.

            Could this unfortunate turn of events been avoided, at least from a U.S. standpoint, if the bracketing at FILA was something that involved common sense and actual seeding. Rather than hope for your guy to carry you through to the consolations, make wrestling about, well, actual wrestling?

            The problem shouldn’t be identified now just because “we” didn’t get a qualifier at 60kg, the potential for such a problem needed to be rectified years ago when this garbage bracketing system was instituted.

            They kissed the pool system good bye and instead, left every country at the 2007 World Championships gasping for air.

            (Jason Bryant is the lead writer/webmaster for InterMat and the 2007 W.I.N. Magazine Wrestling Journalist of the Year. The views expressed in his column are not necessarily the views of W.I.N. Magazine or Bryant’s parent company, the National Wrestling Coaches Association. He can be reached at jbryant@intermatwrestle.com.)