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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

We Scaled the Turkish Wall, Can We Beat the Russian Bear? 

17 November, 1998 - 00:00

By Oleksandr HONCHARUK, The Day

As we know, the Ukrainian freestyle wrestling team scored a convincing
victory against Turkey in the World Cup semi-finals. The final score was
87 to 31 in Ukraine's favor. Now Ukrainians are facing Russian wrestlers
in the final bout for the trophy.

The Day met with the head coach of Ukrainian team Mykhailo
KHARACHURA
and asked him a few questions.

"Mykhailo, were the other guys really so weak?"

"No, but we also turned out to be strong. Frankly speaking, we never
thought we would do so well in the first round in Istanbul. There were
many champions and winners of world and European tournaments there. The
second meeting in Kyiv turned into nothing but mere formality, and we even
ventured to experiment with our roster."

"Well, Elbrus Tedeyev, the student of meritorious coaches Borys and
Ruslan Savlokhov, was only one step away from defeat."

" The world champion of 1995 was obviously stronger than Husein Gazer.
In the first fight Elbrus did not give him a chance to score a single point
and won 7:0. The second fight was one of the most interesting in the tournament.
Elbrus was losing at the beginning 0:6. But later on he managed to score
18 points within two minutes and won the fight cleanly."

"How ready your students are for the decisive bouts?"

" Unfortunately, two of our leaders have been having health problems.
Two-time European champion Oleksandr Zakharuk has a bad cold. Oleksandr
Kolesnyk, the Ukrainian Cup holder, substituted for him in the match with
Turkey. Zaza Zazirov has not yet recovered from a dislocated shoulder joint.
The others can fight even now."

"Former Ukrainians, Anatoly and Serhiy Belohlazov, who are now coaching
adult and junior wrestling teams of Russia, have watched Ukrainian wrestlers
fight American athletes in Kyiv's Sports Palace. Well, we have some of
theirs and they have some of ours. Do you scout the matches wrestlers from
the neighboring country?"

"Both brothers own apartments in Kyiv. So naturally they come here from
time to time to watch their main opponents. We watch Russian athletes during
the World and European tournaments, during huge international competitions.
This information is enough for us to gauge our opponents' potential."

"Incidentally, Anatoly told me that his team did not need to take
part in this tournament and they had decided to take part in it only to
avoid paying a 500,000 French franc penalty to the International Wrestling
Federation. So only bench wrestlers were in the roster as they went out
to meet the Japanese team."

"To take part or not is each athlete's personal business. But it is
always interesting and honorable to go one on one with the world's strongest
teams. Of course they could use bench wrestlers against Japan, only the
best were in the roster, since they solidly beat the Iranian team."

"Anyway, how do you forecast for the final meet?"

"50:50."

"As we know, the first round will take place in Moscow on November
22 and the second round will be held five days later in Kyiv. We won our
road meets against the USA and Turkey, perhaps this happy precedent will
continue here as well."

"No one is against it."

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