Phelps is back, and why not

A great many people are desperately afraid in this life of failure. Being afraid does only one thing. It holds you back.

Michael Phelps is not, has never been, afraid of failure. He has the courage to dream big dreams -- dreams without limits, without worries about what might happen if they don't come true. 

Phelps is indisputably the greatest swimmer of all time. There can be no argument. As he steps on the blocks Thursday at the Mesa Grand Prix, having said at the London 2012 Olympics that he was done swimming competitively but now having changed his mind, the natural question is, why, and the one that goes with it for so many is, but isn’t he afraid of damaging his reputation?

The second one first: no.

For Michael Phelps, this is absolutely opportunity, and nothing but.

This is, in plain speech, what sets greatness apart.

Maybe Phelps won’t win every race between now and the close of the 2016 Rio Games.

Strike that. It’s guaranteed that he won’t, starting with the series this weekend in Arizona.

So what?

It does not matter.

For Phelps, what matters is the opportunity to test himself, to see how good he can be.

As he said Wednesday at a news conference, “I’m doing this for me," adding a moment later, "I am looking forward to wherever this road takes me."

Phelps has never — again, never ever never — said, “I want to win x medals.”

He has always said his goals are to grow the sport of swimming and to be the very best he can be.

His impact is broad and deep:

-- The caliber of athletes in the sport is so much better. Guys coming into college are now swimming the 200 freestyle roughly two seconds faster than they did even just a few years ago. Why? Because they watched Phelps swim, whether in 2004 in Athens or 2008 in Beijing, and said to their parents, that guy is awesome and I want to be like that.

-- The U.S. team has its leader back. As great as Missy Franklin or Katie Ledecky are, and they are, and as fantastic an athlete as Ryan Lochte is, and he is, Phelps is incomparable. He makes everyone better.

Why?

This is a guy who loves to race. He loves to win. He hates to lose.

So why, after proving without a shadow of a doubt — 22 Olympic medals, 18 of them gold — is he back once more to see how good he can be?

Wrong question.

It’s not why,

It’s why not?

Phelps is 28. He turns 29 in July.

When he was in his early teens, just getting started with his coach and mentor Bob Bowman, Phelps would do what Bowman told him to do because, well, Bowman told him to do it. In Athens in 2004, when he won eight medals, six gold, same. In 2008 in Beijing, when they hatched the plan that led to the eight-for-eight gold, same.

By the 2011 world championships in Shanghai, that didn’t work so much anymore. Phelps had already achieved the unthinkable in Beijing; in Shanghai, he acknowledged he needed to find motivation.

In short, that’s what Phelps said by the end of the Games in London; he didn’t have the same motivation.

Though elemental, this is essential to understand: swimming is hard work, arguably the hardest Olympic sport there is, because it is often decided by hundredths of a second and it reveals, truly reveals, whether you have put in the work. That’s what Phelps learned in Shanghai. He hadn’t done the work and at that meet Lochte owned him.

By London, Phelps had done the work in every race but -- as the results emphatically showed -- the 400 individual medley. Indeed, that race proves the point. Phelps swam it because he wanted the test, caring not at all about the prospect of "failure," if fourth place at the Olympics is "failure." The instant know-it-all critics who started braying that Phelps might be done? It was his first final of the Games and, as he said immediately afterward, "It was just a crappy race." He would go on to win six medals.

After London? Time to take time off.

Now?

The intense competitive drive that makes Phelps who he is has not gone away. It never did. As if. Phelps has a lot of guys who want to hang out with him. That doesn’t fill him up. That might be good for a weekend, or a week.

Golf? For fun — sure. As an everyday thing? Come on.

Let’s get one thing perfectly straight, and for all time: Phelps is super-smart and, for that matter, multitasks as well as any CEO. He is not, nearing 29, going to go to college; when he was training in Michigan before the 2008 Games, he was not working toward a four-year degree (though he is a big Maize and Blue fan).

Swimming, from the time he was little, not only provided Phelps with structure. Fundamentally, it gave him purpose.

Again —for Phelps, swimming was the ultimate provider of structure in his world. Then and now, it provides him a base of friends. Too, it offers a coach and staff with guidance.

The realization Phelps doubtlessly has arrived at now, in 2014, is that he isn’t coming to Bowman and the North Baltimore Aquatic Club because he has to.

He wants to.

That makes all the difference.

Phelps said Wednesday he weighed 187 pounds in 2012 in London. Afterward, he allowed himself to get to 225. Now he's at 194.

Bowman has assembled at the club a world-class roster that includes the likes of French sprinter Yannick Agnel; American sprinter Conor Dwyer; Tunisian long-distance ace Ous Mellouli; and more.

If you know Phelps, however, you know that for him now training has to be more fun than less. And for him the person who most often makes training fun is Allison Schmitt, who is, among other things, the London 2012 women’s 200-meter gold medalist.

Schmitt, who moved to Baltimore last year after finishing up at the University of Georgia, is making something of a comeback herself. She had a crummy nationals and — to everyone’s shock — missed making the U.S. team that swam at the 2013 world championships in Barcelona.

Phelps and Schmitt have always had something of a brother-sister relationship. They make each other laugh. He’s good for her. She’s good for him.

"I can't say it enough," he said Wednesday. "I am having fun."

As for those 2013 worlds — it was there, in Barcelona, that it became evident to everyone who knows swimming that Phelps would be back.

The only question was when.

The U.S. men’s 4x100 freestyle relay team lost to the French — with Agnel. Having Phelps sure would have helped. He was in the stands that day, texting Bowman, the U.S. men’s 2013 coach, critiques of the race. Phelps takes enormous pride in team and country, and he wants the American men to own that relay.

Phelps also surely would have noticed that Chad le Clos of South Africa won the 100-meter butterfly in 51.08 seconds, the 200 fly in 1:54.32. When he has put in the work, Phelps swims faster than those times.

Le Clos isn’t swimming in Arizona — though there are, in total, 27 Olympic medalists from seven countries who between them have 97 medals, 51 gold, registered to swim in Mesa.

Lochte — and it must be acknowledged he is an extraordinary talent, with 11 Olympic medals, five gold — is on the start lists.

Giving credit where it is due, Lochte did his thing in the 400 IM in London. Phelps might well be done— as the Mesa Grand Prix proves, never say never — with that event. That said, both guys have traditionally duked it out in the 200 IM and if this weekend and for the foreseeable future Phelps swims even shorter events, so be it. He said Wednesday he would be scratching the 100 free in Mesa but would be swimming the 100 fly -- hardly a surprise.

But Phelps knows one other thing, too, and Lochte knows it as well, looking ahead — way ahead — to Rio:

At the Olympic Games, the 200 IM traditionally comes just minutes, literally minutes, after the 200 backstroke. Lochte swims the 200 back. Phelps does not. The 200 back is a killer. It leaves the legs feeling like wood. It is a testament to Lochte’s will that he even tries the double.

Always, always, always remember this about Michael Phelps:

He loves to race. He loves to win. He hates to lose.

"Thank you, Meb"

Meb Keflezghi’s victory Monday at the Boston Marathon, so poignant, so soulful, proved an epic reminder of why sports matter. He is the first American man to win the race since 1983.

Keflezighi, who turns 39 in a couple weeks, is the oldest Boston Marathon winner since at least 1930.

His win, in 2:08.37, marked a soaring triumph of the human spirit — a year after the bombings that killed three people and wounded hundreds. Keflezighi ran with the names of the dead — a fourth, a police officer killed in the manhunt that ensued after the bombings — written on his bib, which read, simply, “Meb.”

Officials estimated that perhaps a million people turned out for the 2014 Boston Marathon, to cheer on the 36,000 runners, 9,000 more than usual.

To say that Keflezighi was not expected to win would be an understatement. After all, he had finished only 23rd at last year’s New York Marathon. Fifteen guys had faster personal-best times than Keflezighi going into Boston 2014.

Keflezighi is, of course, the 2004 Olympic silver medalist and the 2009 New York marathon champ. But he is no longer running in Nikes, having lost that sponsorship  — thought to be too old and too slow. Instead, he was kicking Monday in red-and-silver flyers from Skechers, the Manhattan Beach, California-based company better known for skateboard shoes.

Too old and too slow proved tactically brilliant Monday.

He went out in a two-man pack — everybody else let them go — with Josphat Boit. At Mile 16, Keflezighi made his move, running that split in 4:39, opening up a big gap. He said afterward he had to fight off a stomach bug about Mile 22. He then found the strength to keep ahead of Kenyans Wilson Chebet, the two-time Amsterdam Marathon champion, and Franklin Chepkwony, the 2012 Zurich Marathon winner.

Chebet finished in 2:08.48, Chepkwony two seconds behind that.

“Going through the last two miles, it was a challenge, it was difficult,” Keflezighi said at a news conference, adding a moment later, “Sometimes you just have to run and dig deep.”

The debate can begin now about where Keflezighi stands now in the ranks of American marathoners. Frank Shorter? Bill Rodgers? Alberto Salazar?

Keflezighi's 2004 silver made him the first U.S. man to win an Olympic marathon medal since Shorter, who won gold in 1972 and silver in 1976.  When Keflezighi won in New York in 2009? That made him the first U.S. man to win there since 1982.

For sure, this much  has to be acknowledged: Keflezighi has had to compete in an era when the East Africans have been in their ascendancy. What he has done — Olympic silver, New York and, now, Boston, and Boston in 2014 with all the symbolism — deserves appropriate recognition, and especially from anyone with any connection to the hardest thing that will forever define the distinct culture that is the marathon:

Putting on your shoes — red-and-silver, whatever — and stepping out the door.

Too old, too slow, can't do it -- all of that got beat back Monday. That is the essence of the marathon. And, in a very real way, it is the essence, too, of sports.

It's why he ran, and so many of thousands of others did, too.

“What he has accomplished should be a source of pride for all Americans,” Max Siegel, the chief executive officer of USA Track & Field, said in a statement that captured the moment.

“Since 2004, Meb has set the standard for what American marathoners can achieve. With everything that was at stake at the 2014 Boston Marathon, this must rank as one of the greatest American marathon performances in history.

“Thank you, Meb.”

USATF, Nike in apparent $500 million deal

USA Track & Field on Tuesday announced a groundbreaking 23-year deal with Nike apparently worth $500 million, an arrangement that holds the potential to transform the leading sport of the Olympic movement in untold ways in the United States for a generation. The Nike deal comes 13 days after USATF announced a seven-year partnership with Hershey, the chocolate maker. In February, 2013, USATF announced Neustar, the administrator of the .US top-level domain, as the three-year sponsor of its national road-racing championships.

Two more significant deals are expected to be announced next week.

“We are a more robust organization and, frankly, it is creating a lot of positive momentum for people who want to engage with us,” USATF chief executive Max Siegel said, adding of the Nike arrangement that while the Oregon company is “a significant part of our funding, it is one sponsor.”

Neither USATF nor Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike would disclose the financial details of the arrangement, which runs from 2017 through 2040. It is believed, however, to be at least double USATF’s current annual financial and in-kind support from Nike. Based on USATF financial documents and past media reports, that would put it in the $17-20 million dollar range annually.

“Nike was founded as a running company, and our passion for track and field is at the core of our DNA,” Mark Parker, the company’s chief executive and president, said in a statement, adding, “We have been a longstanding partner of USATF since 1991 and are extremely proud to extend our partnership and commitment to the sport.”

Half a billion dollars is the kind of money that might regularly fly around the NFL, NBA or Major League Baseball.

In Olympic sport in the United States, not so much — and particularly in track and field, bedeviled in recent years by virtually every manner of issue, challenge, problem, crisis, whatever imaginable, everything from rules imbroglios to political turf wars to governance matters to repeated doping scandals.

Despite it all, Team USA keeps racking up medals: 29 at the London 2012 Games, testament to the world’s best grass-roots, high school and college programs.

Because it's USATF, and it has such history, there is the easy temptation to wonder what's the catch in a deal of this magnitude.

For sure, the deal will likely result in more pressure for more track and field events in Oregon. On Tuesday, for instance, the IAAF, track and field’s international governing body announced that Eugene, along with Barcelona and Doha, Qatar, were candidates for the 2019 world championships; the IAAF will decide in November. The world championships, which date to 1983, have never been staged in the United States.

Will Nike be just “one sponsor”? It has provided USATF uniforms for the last six editions of the Summer Games. It is the driver behind the Oregon Project, the group founded more than a dozen years ago to promote distance running — where Alberto Salazar directs the likes of Mo Farah, Galen Rupp, Jordan Hasay, Shannon Rowbury and, now, Mary Cain.

Nike assuredly doesn’t do deals unless it has run the financial analysis and figures it makes sense, or more. Nike surely considered the present value of some $20 million annually, and the 2040 value of those dollars.

Then again, there’s this:  in a deal, it’s always good — for everyone — to find certainty.

What if this deal is indeed a game-changer for USATF and beyond, for the entire U.S. Olympic scene, prompting everyone to think big?

When he took over nearly two years ago as USATF’s chief executive, Siegel took a look at the federation’s financials. USATF had roughly $2.7 million in operating reserves. Now: $6 million. By year’s end: $20 million.

Siegel has simultaneously undertaken a campaign to use increasing amounts of interest income to pay for USATF operating expenses in Indianapolis.

With more money freed up, the theory is to use dollars for programming and athlete support.

“One of the things I wanted to make sure I was able to do was install a really solid financial foundation to give us plenty of runway to [develop] programming,” Siegel said.

USATF has long operated in a space where there is consistent, if not chronic, push-and-pull from an incredible array of interests — athletes, agents, organizers from the track as well as road racing, and more.

Half a billion dollars would seem to spell “leverage.”

Siegel would say only, “It definitely gives us the ability to set a very high standard, both in terms of accountability and expectation with our constituents. Every single program in the federation is going to benefit significantly in terms of the infusion of capital.

“We can engage with our leadership and set a new standard of leadership: ‘You are going to have to perform at a very high level.’ “

At the same time, as the pushback from the controversial disqualification of Gabriele Grunewald — and then reversal of that DQ — at the women’s 3,000-meters at the U.S. indoor nationals in February in Albuquerque underscored, USATF needs, now more than ever, to make sure its governance is up to a $500-million standard.

“What I have heard since I got involved with the sport is people talking about professionalizing, or raising the level of professionalism, in the sport,” Siegel said.

“I have read through all the levels of coverage, even the criticism of our sport, from Albuquerque. As CEO, I don’t disagree. For the last 20 years, I have been a talent and athlete advocate. We want to be a big brand and to make money. To do that, what these issues have done, have highlighted, is the need to sit down and make sure our governance lines up with the desired commercial outcome.”

The time is now, he emphasized for a wide-ranging governance review — “across-the-board.”

“We are looking at a pretty comprehensive governance review,” Siegel said, noting that while USATF has already announced a review of “field-of-play” decisions, “To be effective, you have to take a comprehensive look at all of it.” He observed that “special interests” tend “to be passionate,” and USATF “has done patchwork over the years.”

He said, “We need to take a look at governance change for the whole organization."

ANOC gets big-time professionalized

KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait — When you are living it in the moment, it is of course a challenge indeed to know whether a three-day meeting spread across a hotel complex and an office tower makes for a turning point, the sort of thing that accounts for the sort of thing Olympic historians can one day point to with distinct accuracy and say, this was when it all came together. As it drew Monday night to a close, however, it seemed abundantly evident that the time is now for the 204-member Association of National Olympic Committees.

Headed by the charismatic Kuwaiti Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, ANOC seems poised to assert itself on the Olympic scene as never before.

Against the backdrop of the International Olympic Committee’s own 2014 review process, dubbed “Olympic Agenda 2020,” with the international sports federations due next week to meet in Turkey at the SportAccord conference under the leadership of the influential Marius Vizer, ANOC — first on the post-Sochi calendar — made the most of the timing.

IOC president Thomas Bach, and Vizer, among others, were in attendance here in Kuwait.

In all, 41 of the 106 IOC members were drawn to this desert meeting.

Actually, three separate sessions took place:

— ANOC, overseen by Sheikh Ahmad since a revolution of sorts in Moscow in 2012. The organization had been headed — since its June 1979 founding — by Mexico’s Mario Vazquez Raña.

— Olympic Council of Asia, the regional confederation, overseen by Sheikh Ahmad since 1991.

— Olympic Solidarity, the IOC initiative, overseen now as well by Sheikh Ahmad, that aims to identify and train promising athletes from around the world. It carries a 2013-2016 budget of $438 million.

The trip to Kuwait marked Bach’s first to the region since becoming IOC president last September. In a news conference Saturday, noting the participation of ANOC, OCA and others in Olympic Agenda 2020, he called these meetings an “important step in the procedure.”

ANOC, meanwhile, kicked things off Saturday with a series of commission meetings.

So what?

So often the volunteers who make up the Olympic movement are derided for what is depicted as the desire to belly up to some trough and pig out on all the free food and booze imaginable.

One, this is Kuwait. There wasn’t booze.

Two, these meetings were held in the second floor of the Missoni hotel, or alternatively at the Olympic Council of Asia complex, starting at 9 a.m. sharp. It was like being in a hotel room in Buffalo, or Cleveland, or anywhere. The doors were locked and no one got out, except for a coffee break, for three hours. The afternoon sessions? Same deal. Three hours, if not longer.

Three, the nine commissions were a first — specialized task-forces created, 30-some years after ANOC itself got launched, to, as a press statement would put it, “add fresh impetus to ANOC’s ongoing process of reform and modernization at a time when the IOC is calling on all stakeholders within the Olympic movement to undergo a process of self-analysis and self-evaluation.”

Here, for instance, was a “marketing and new sources of finance” commission, headed by Larry Probst, the U.S. Olympic Committee board chair and new IOC member.

“He’s a professional,” Sheikh Ahmad was saying Sunday night of Probst. “For that I was very happy when I was hearing all those reports. The road map is very clear. It’s never too late, as I was mentioning in the beginning.”

There was a “modernization follow-up commission.”

There were, among others, finance, juridical and medical panels.

Too, here was an athletes’ commission, headed by Barbara Kendall, winner of gold, silver and bronze medals in windsurfing, also an IOC member and, moreover, runner-up in 2009 in the New Zealand version of “Dancing with the Stars.”

And so on — all part of the professionalization of ANOC.

ANOC also approved a new logo, the design soon to be made public.

It authorized plans, at a one-time cost of $20 million, for new headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. Sheikh Ahmad said at a news conference Monday night he was confident the bid would be brought in under budget.

Plans are in the works for a world Beach Games, perhaps as soon as 2015; interest has been solicited from a number of cities; a final report on the project is due at a meeting, set for Lausanne of the ANOC executive council in July, the sheikh said.

Another project — a gala awards ceremony. This is now set for Nov. 7, at the ANOC general assembly, in Bangkok. The concept — they’re thinking big — is for this gala is in very short order to become the sports Oscars, and with all due respect to every other show out there, ANOC has ambition and resource.

“I think this the reality of the NOCs,” Sheikh Ahmad said Monday night at that same news conference. “I think the NOCs have a good role to play in the movement …

“The head is the IOC. At the right hand should the NOCs. The left hand should be the IFs," meaning the international sports federations. "This, I believe, is the summary of the situation.

“For that we have to work because we lost 30 years of our movement.

“We have to work in a very speedy way to reach exactly all our demands. This is the demand of our NOCs.

“What we promised in the Moscow general assembly [in 2012], I think we will achieve it all in Bangkok.

“In two years we will have achieved everything. Then we will have a stable situation to develop and achieve our success.”

Why by the Persian Gulf

KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait — Accounting for the sudden resignation a couple days ago of French ski legend Jean-Claude Killy, there are now 106 active members of the International Olympic Committee. As the IOC president, Thomas Bach, pointed out in a news conference Sunday morning, Arabic hospitality is known worldwide.

Maybe that is why a reported 41 IOC members gave up their weekend to come to Kuwait to attend the meeting of the 204-member Association of National Olympic Committees.

Or perhaps it is a signal of the considerable influence of Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah — who, among other roles, is the ANOC president — that some four of 10 IOC members came to Kuwait from around the world.

Here, among others: IOC vice president and Rio 2016 coordination chair Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco. Executive board members Pat Hickey of Ireland and Gunilla Lindberg of Sweden.

IOC athletes’ commission chair Claudia Bokel of Germany, another executive board member.

Larry Probst, the U.S. Olympic Committee board chairman and new IOC member.

And many more influential personalities within the Olympic sphere — among them, SportAccord and International Judo Federation president Marius Vizer.

The Sochi Games closed just roughly five weeks ago.

The IOC executive board meeting, to be held in conjunction with the SportAccord conference in Turkey, goes down next week.

It’s not as if IOC members are — or were — lacking for opportunities to get together.

Yet here they were.

For ANOC, this was in fact something of a history-making occasion. On Saturday, it held a variety of commission meetings — that is, the first time its commissions were said to have had these kinds of meetings, all designed as a lead-up toward the ANOC general assembly this fall in Bangkok.

And then there was the pull of having Bach on hand as well.

“It’s a big honor to welcome the president of the International Olympic Committee here in Kuwait,” Sheikh Ahmad said at that same news conference.

Bach said, “We are having a broad discussion among all the stakeholders of the Olympic movement,” adding a moment later that the weekend involved “looking into the future and looking into the different roles of the stakeholders and ensuring the harmonious roles under the leadership of the IOC.”

Much of 2014, of course, is being devoted to what Bach has called “Olympic Agenda 2020,” a far-reaching review of what works — and what doesn’t — as the IOC and the broader movement, now past Sochi, regroups and looks toward Rio 2016, the 2022 Winter and 2024 Summer bid cycles and beyond.

Bach took a moment to note the “great success of the Sochi Games,” in contrast to the doom and gloom that preceded virtually all the talk beforehand.

Five bid cities are in the 2022 pipeline: Almaty, Kazakhstan; Beijing; Krakow, Poland; Lviv, Ukraine; and Oslo. Lviv must confront political upheaval; Krakow now looks set to deal with a referendum; Oslo is grappling with local challenges to long-held assumptions about who bears what responsibilities in the bid system.

How many of the five applicants will ultimately see it through to the 2015 IOC election in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, remains decidedly unclear.

A “candidature for the Games,” Bach said — reflecting on how the “great positive legacy” of Sochi is now “well understood by the respective cities and countries” — is a “great opportunity to transform a region and a society for the better.

“Therefore, I am not too worried.”

As for Olympic Agenda 2020, he laid out a timeline, apparently for the first time publicly, for getting to the IOC’s all-members extraordinary session in Monaco in December. There the issues will be debated and, presumably, decisions will be taken. Or, more likely, ratified:

— The special special email address set up to solicit suggestions from around the globe — OlympicAgenda2020@olympic.org — closes April 15.

— Working groups will convene, probably in June.

— July will see a summit of sorts, the presidents of the major stakeholders.

— In September, the results from the working groups and the “summit” will go to the IOC commissions. Bach is due to announce in the next few days the make-up of the 2014 commissions.

— In October, the commissions are due to make recommendations to the executive board.

— The board will prepare a document to be submitted to the extraordinary session, set for Dec. 6-7.

“This will give us a good opportunity, as the president has mentioned … to keep the values of the movement and the main ideals of the movement but also to develop the relationships,” Sheikh Ahmad said.

And if you want to know why more than 40 IOC members made their way this weekend to the Persian Gulf, there you have it.

Life is a relationship business. Especially in the IOC.

Who understands this principle?

Thomas Bach.

And the host for the weekend, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah. You had better believe he understands this is how things get done.

What does Sheikh Ahmad want?

KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait — One rumor has him one day taking over FIFA, soccer’s international governing body. Another has it that he is simply biding his time and wants to be president of the International Olympic Committee. He is, after all, only 50 years old. Still remarkably young for a man at ease in so many intersections.

Yet another talking point has it that Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, the former OPEC chairman who since 2006 has been his country’s national security minister, is cleverly aiming to parlay his Olympic, soccer and sports portfolio into a long-range hardball twist, back into the top echelon of Kuwaiti leadership. When, of course, the timing is right.

What does the sheikh want?

A year ago, this was the question on the minds of virtually everyone in the Olympic sphere.

Throughout the spring and summer, and then at the historic 125th IOC session in early September in Buenos Aires, he parlayed his behind-the-scenes political acumen into a magnificent triple-play, helping to effect the election of Thomas Bach as president; Tokyo as host of the 2020 Summer Games; and the reinstatement of wrestling onto the Summer Games program.

For good measure, he even saw to it that Anita DeFrantz of the United States was elected to the IOC executive board — this after she had secured single digits in two prior election runs.

When all was said and done in Buenos Aires, as the sheikh was — and remains — quick to underscore, there was zero question that Bach was  indisputably in charge of all things IOC, indeed Olympic.

At the same time, there was no doubt, too, that the sheikh — head of the Olympic Council of Asia, the 204-member Association of National Olympic Committees and, as well, the IOC’s own Olympic Solidarity initiative, which carries oversight of a 2013-16 budget of $438 million — had positioned himself to be a man of significance, indeed.

The sheikh, for those who don't understand, practices grass-roots politics. Solidarity is a perfect example. It aims to provide financial, technical and administrative aid to national Olympic committees, particularly those in developing nations.

The 2013-2016 budget? Up more than 40 percent from the 2009-12 cycle, $311 million.

Since taking office, Bach, 60, has wasted little time making it plain that change is the order of the day. Bach has an eight-year mandate and, unless something extraordinary happens, will almost surely get four more years after that. He figures to be in office until 2025.

Even so, Sheikh Ahmad would by then only be in his early 60s, still plenty young enough to be -- the first Arabic -- IOC president. If that is what he wants.

Of course, 2025 is a long, long way away. The Bach years are just starting.

Last fall, Bach gave a speech at the United Nations outlining separate but important roles for the worlds of sport and politics, roles he again delineated at the Sochi Games. At the IOC session in Sochi, he invited comments from the floor, and got them — in all, 211 over a day and a half, an unheard-of number, the members weighing in on the make-up of the Olympic program, visits to bid cities and much, much more.

The IOC is due to study what — in nature and scope — will be done as part of what Bach has termed “Olympic Agenda 2020.” Another all-members assembly is planned for Monaco in early December.

For political junkies, this is all great stuff.

Thus, again the question: what does the sheikh want?

In his 18th-floor office, the waters of the Persian Gulf shimmering below as the sun set gently Friday in the west, the sheikh smiled. Over the course of this weekend, ANOC’s executive council is due to meet; dozens of IOC members are expected on hand; it is rumored Bach may make an appearance.

“I want to see the movement in a better situation,” the sheikh said.

“I want to see the movement flexible to receive everybody in it.

“I want to see the movement in a position which keeps the logo of the sport around the world and I don’t think this is [just] what Sheik Ahmad wants — I think this is what a lot of IOC members want,” he said, adding a moment later, “I think this is our dream.”

How, he was asked did he assess the state of the movement? Was it healthy? And how did he view prospects for Olympic Agenda 2020?

“I think it’s healthy, a healthy movement,” he said.

“My part should be two main roles. To show the wishes and the [desires] of the NOCs. Not all of them have a part of the IOC house. For that I have to be their ambassador …

“Then, as an IOC member, I have to support the president and be his supporter to achieve his goals.

"I have two different positions and be a supporter of both of them.”

Some, it was suggested, would say, yes, OK, but what about your own personal ambitions?

“I don’t think so,” Sheikh Ahmad said. “Otherwise, I will be in the EB of the IOC. I know everybody knows the story.”

So why so many rumors?

“I think the reality is not giving you witness for these rumors.”

He laughed.

“You know my way. I am an open man.”

Another laugh.

“Maybe it makes people a little scared [that] he,” and here the sheikh was referring to himself, “is an open man.”

Doping echoes of East Germany

Doping in elite international sport is “rampant,” the former executive who last year exposed failings in the Jamaican testing program said this week at a conference in London, just as it emerged that the entire Azerbaijan weightlifting team’s results from the 2013 European championships were wiped out — five lifters, 14 medals — by positive tests. Moreover, those tests were for oral turinabol, the very same steroid at the heart of the 1970s East German doping system.

Four more Azeri weightlifters were also sanctioned in 2013 after testing positive for the exact same steroid. Two were teenagers -- one 17, the other 16 -- when they tested positive. The seeming star of the team is now just 19; he was a bronze medalist at the London 2012 Summer Games.

Speaking Wednesday at the Tackling Doping in Sport conference, Renee Anne Shirley, the former director of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission, said, “Every time someone says, ‘We don’t have a problem in X sport or Y country, I say, ‘Oh, really?’ “

Meanwhile, the International Weightlifting Federation, based in Budapest, released an opaque statement acknowledging that the Azeri competitors and the national federation had “received punishment.” Separately, the Azeri head weightlifting coach, Zlatan Vanev, said, “I [am], frankly, shocked.”

For all the very real progress the World Anti-Doping Agency, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and others have made over the past dozen or so years, the Lance Armstrong affair, Operation Puerto, BALCO and more have made it abundantly clear that doping remains a powerful current with which sports officials, police and prosecutors must contend.

The shock is not that the current exerts its pull.

It always will do so. Human nature is what it is.

The shock is threefold:

One, the Azeri weightlifting program — an asset of a state ministry — apparently sought to enhance performance in 2013 in much the same fashion the East Germans did in the 1970s. Has nothing changed in some 40 years?

Two, the Azeris are hardly alone. Other weightlifters were also sanctioned in 2013 for using oral turinabol, including more than half a dozen from Kazakhstan.

Three, instead of making an example of such programs and those athletes, the International Weightlifting Federation opted to low-key the matter. Why?

The 2015 weightlifting world championships are due to come to Houston, in November. The sport will get far more attention in the U.S., and indeed the western, press then than it typically does. The months between now and then offer a window for the International Olympic Committee to take a long, hard look at weightlifting and to assess, meaningfully, whether weightlifting deserves its place in the Summer Games.

Wrestling got such a review in 2013. Now it’s weightlifting’s turn.

Should a sport with such a demonstrably poor record in the anti-doping campaign keep getting a free pass when it comes to staying on the Olympic program? Shouldn’t weightlifting have to meet real metrics, and prove to the IOC that — as a prerequisite for staying on for 2024 and beyond — it is serious about cleaning up?

Some background and context:

For all the widespread public focus on sports such as cycling and track and field, weightlifting is where the most concentrated work in the anti-doping campaign needs to be done.

Numbers do not lie.

According to the WADA's 2012 report, the most recent year for which figures are available, weightlifting showed 159 “adverse analytical findings” — that is, positive tests — from 3,893 in-competition urine tests worldwide, for a return rate of 4.1 percent.

For comparison:

Across all sports, there were 1,546 positive in-competition tests, out of 102,102, a return rate of 1.5 percent.

Weightlifting also had —by far —the most out-of-competition positives, 91, out of 4,299 tests, a rate of 2.1 percent.

The sport with the next-most, track and field, had only 38, out of 10,952 samples, a rate of 0.3 percent. Cycling? 24 positives from 6,797 tests, 0.35 percent. Swimming, just as another example? 11 positives from 6,444 tests, 0.1 percent.

Across the board, there were 280 positives in 71,349 out-of-competition samples, 0.4 percent.

That report also details what happens when you inject real money into the equation.

As part of the lab process, officials can use a far more refined analysis —it’s called the carbon-isotope test —to look for evidence of doping. Each use costs about $400.

Around the world in 2012, officials used the carbon-isotope test 318 times to search for evidence of doping in weightlifting. Figuring $400 per test, that’s just over $127,000.

For $127,000, here’s what you got:

—108 in-competition samples, 17 positive tests, 15.7 percent.

—210 out-of-competition tests, 32 positive tests, 15.2 percent.

Combined, that’s 318 tests, 49 positive tests, a return rate of 15.4 percent.

To be super-obvious, 15.4 percent blows away the “normal” rates of 4.1 or 2.1 percent.

Statistically, no other Olympic sport is nowhere close to weightlifting’s 15.4 percent return rate. Cycling, thought by many amid the revelations of the Armstrong case to be simply filthy? 4.97 percent, on 543 carbon-isotope tests. Track and field, 5.75 percent.

If you know where and how to dig through the IWF’s website, you find even more disturbing figures.

Deep within that site are the IWF’s lists of “sanctioned athletes.”

Up now is the list for 2013. It shows the IWF sanctioned — to be clear, these are cases in which a positive test produced action — 76 athletes around the world, 53 from in-competition tests, 23 out-of-competition, the vast majority, whether in- or out-of-competition, for steroids.

A full 43 of those 76, or 56.5 percent, were for stanozolol. That is like taking a ride on the way-back machine to 1988. Because that is the same steroid that got Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson busted at the Seoul Games.

Twelve of the 76? From Kazakhstan. Seven of those 12 — busted for oral turinabol as well.

Uzbekistan? Seven, all but one stanozolol.

These sorts of numbers underscore two big-picture trends.

The first can be traced to the eruption roughly 10 years ago of the BALCO affair in the United States. That, in turn, prompted a rules change that had the practical effect of swinging would-be cheats away from designer steroids — such as THG, the substance at the heart of the BALCO matter — and back to the basics.

Like stanozolol, oral turinabol or straight testosterone.

The second is an advance in testing technology.

As a German television station reported last year, scientists at the Moscow and Cologne, Germany, labs have developed a new testing procedure — known as the “long-term metabolites method” — to extend the detection window. Officials from those labs told the TV station that a sample that would have produced a negative result as recently as 2012 would in 2013 glow positive more than six months after it was taken.

Two track and field athletes, for instance, tested positive for oral turinabol at last summer’s world championships in Moscow: Ukrainian javelin thrower Roman Avramenko, who finished fifth, and Turkmenistan’s Yelena Ryabova, who failed to make it out of the heats in the women’s 200 meters.

The IAAF, track and field’s governing body, made sure everyone knew about these positive tests.

The IWF?

That statement about “punishment”? Indeed, it was put out front Wednesday on the IWF website. But not under “doping” or “Azerbaijan” or another similarly suggestive keyword. The trick was to look for “official communication.”

The statement named no names of anyone sanctioned. Nor to be found was the name of the IWF president, its general secretary or anyone from its executive office.

Too, the statement leaned heavily toward passive voice: “In this process, in 2013 several anti-doping violations were disclosed …”

Even allowing that it took nearly an entire year -- the 2013 European championships were staged last April, in Albania -- why no allocation now of responsibility for the disqualification of an entire team and its marks?

More of the same: “The relevant procedures of anti-doping violations by multiple weightlifters from Azerbaijan have now been closed.” By whom? When? How? Were there appeals? Were any appeals contested?

The statement said immediately thereafter that those lifters who tested positive at the 2013 European championships and subsequently in out-of-competition testing had been sanctioned and results lists updated. Incredibly, the statement did not identify the lifters or provide links to the “before” or “after” results.

The notice also said the athletes and the Azerbaijan Weightlifting Federation itself had received punishment “following the sanctions stipulated in the IWF Anti-Doping Policy.” Did that mean the federation was fined? How much? The policy suggests that nine or more violations equals a $500,000 fine.

If so, when is the fine due? How will anyone know the federation paid such a fine? If it’s not paid, will the Azeri federation — as the policy suggests — be suspended for four years? Again, how will anyone know? What would trigger the start of such a suspension?

The statement went on to say, “The Weightlifting Federation of Azerbaijan is one of the most active also as the home of a Weightlifting Academy and host of various significant events. Drawing the conclusions of last year they now have the obligation to turn a new page and build a new, clean national team.”

What about any of this offers the sort of transparency and forthright reporting an international federation dedicated to genuinely and meaningfully reporting and addressing, much less cleaning up, its significant doping issues would present?

As a start, the rules mandate that the names of athletes who are sanctioned be made public.

So here, via cross-referencing in the IWF website, are the nine Azeri lifters sanctioned in 2013. All, according to the site, tested positive for the steroid dehydromethyltestosterone. That steroid’s brand name, according to three knowledgeable figures in the anti-doping community: oral turinabol. 

The list from the European championships:

— Valentin Hristov. Just 19, born in Bulgaria, he won bronze in the bantamweight class at the London 2012 Games.

— Intiqam Zairov. A 28-year-old London 2012 Olympian.

— Sardar Hasanov. Also 28, another London 2012 Olympian.

— Zulfugar Suleymanov, 31, who missed the London Games because of a prior ban.

— Silviya Angelova, 31.

Also sanctioned in 2013:

— Kamran Ismayilov, 20. The DQ erases results from the European Junior Championships.

— Alona Kiriienko, 26. Gone are her results from the Summer University Games in Kazan, Russia.

— Marziyya Maharramova. When she tested positive last September, she was just 17. She turns 18 on April 14. Her two-year suspension runs until September 2015.

— Kseniia Vyshnytska. Even younger. Her birthday: Jan. 16, 1997. She was 16 last year, just turned 17 a few weeks ago. Her suspension runs until April 2015.

Eight of the nine received two-year suspensions. Suleymanov was banned for life, having been suspended once before.

Ismayilov and Kiriienko were caught in out-of-competition tests. The other seven positives were in-competition tests.

Baku, it should be noted, is due to play host to the 2015 European Games. Those Games are intended to serve as a coming-out party, a symbol of prestige for Azerbaijan.

With Baku aiming yet for bigger things — it has bid for the Summer Games before and presumably has a bid for the 2024 or 2028 Games in its sights — the question is obvious: how can the weightlifting program have been operating so recklessly?

Unlike the United States, where sports and government are separate, in Azerbaijan, the Ministry of Youth and Sports oversees Olympic sport. So the question perhaps ought to be framed differently: who in the Azeri ministry is responsible for the weightlifting program and what did that official know, and when? Further, is it credible to believe the weightlifting program was operating independently of political or governmental control?

If Baku wants to be a serious player on the world stage, it has to take these questions -- and provide answers -- seriously.

The same applies in equal measure to Kazakhstan. Almaty is firmly in the race for the 2022 Winter Games.

“I know nothing,” Vanev, the Azeri weightlifting coach, was quoted as saying. “That’s all I can say for today. Someone went to the site and there is something written,” apparently a reference to the IWF website.

His quote then concludes with these words, which surely carry unintended meaning: “It boggles the mind.”

The vexing Iran conundrum

With leadership comes responsibility. At wrestling’s freestyle World Cup Sunday in Los Angeles, the Iranian men’s wrestling team asserted it is, once again, best in the world. Now the challenge facing it — as well as everyone connected to the sport, indeed the broader Olympic movement — is as simple and elegant as it is vexing.

Are the Iranians — that is, its government, through its wrestling program — prepared to step up and show they will fully engage with the world?

If not, what is to be done?

Jordan Burroughs, the American champion, said these words after wrestling Sunday night, and while they were uttered in a slightly different context, they apply here as well: “I just want our sport to be great. I want people to give us the respect we deserve.”

There was great solidarity and sportsmanship on display over the weekend as wrestlers from Iran and the United States, from Ukraine and Russia, from Turkey and Armenia competed on the mat. There were handshakes. There was talk, meaningful talk, of “family.”

For that talk to be fulfilled, the Iranians have to wrestle all comers. Everyone. That means, should they appear, the Israelis.

In addition, for the sake of credibility and for the growth of wrestling, the Iranians must field a women’s wrestling team. Right now, they don’t.

These issues are vital. Wrestling last year escaped the death knell in a vote by the International Olympic Committee. It has a window — and that window is short — to keep proving to the IOC it is relevant in our 21st-century world.

In significant ways, wrestling advanced its case in this weekend’s action at the World Cup in Los Angeles, so much so that word is the 10-team World Cup is due back in LA in 2015.

At the same time, when your best team in your most important discipline is the projection of a state policy that is exclusionary and discriminatory — there’s no other way around it — that is a matter that calls not just for serious reflection but action.

“The challenge for us — not just for the Iranians — is that we are coming together not just for sport but for the betterment of mankind,” said Rich Bender, the executive director of USA Wrestling, evoking the aspirational ideal of the French baron Pierre de Coubertin, widely acknowledged as the founder of the modern Olympic movement.

“How do we do that?”

As a starting place:

If next year the World Cup is indeed back in Los Angeles, how about organizers pair up all 10 teams with area middle-schools and, as part of the program, organize a mandatory excursion for everyone — repeat, everyone — to the Museum of Tolerance on LA's Westside?

At every big-time soccer game, you see the players lining up at the start with kids. Pairing up with local schools would be a great way for the wrestling community to create outreach all kinds of different ways: it would help build needed community buzz around the World Cup, maybe jump-start a fund-raising opportunity for the schools and, along the way, raise awareness among everyone — again, everyone — of tolerance.

Who is opposed to tolerance?

If it’s the Iranian government, how does that position jibe not only with the ideals of the Olympic movement but with the Olympic charter? With the rules of FILA, the international wrestling federation?

No one outside Iran knows, for instance, why the Iranian wrestling team — due to come to LA last year immediately after an appearance in New York amid the Olympic reinstatement campaign — suddenly flew home. Or why it was OK this year to come to LA.

The Iranian athletes and coaches have, typically, been circumspect.

Further: no one on the outside knows whether the Iranian wrestlers were frustrated or upset — or otherwise — when denied the opportunity to come to LA last year.

Just like outsiders have no clue what is really going on when, as has been the case over the years at various events, Iranian athletes don’t show up to swim or suddenly fall ill at a taekwondo match when an Israeli is involved. Are the Iranian athletes themselves just as frustrated as anyone would seemingly be in that sort of situation?

Referring to last year’s planned trip to LA, Iranian wrestler Masoud Esmailpour Jouybari, who competes at 61 kilograms/134 pounds, speaking Saturday through a translator, said, “We were supposed to come last year but under some circumstances it didn’t happen.

“This is a place where many Iranians live, so the World Cup came here,” he said, meaning Southern California. “Hopefully, if it’s a great event, it can ease problems between the two countries.”

The axiom is that sports and politics are supposed to stay separate.

Reza Yazdani, the Iranian 2013 world champion at 97 kilos/213 pounds, had said Saturday, “It’s best if sports and politics don’t mix. In wrestling, it’s best if the politics stay out of the sport itself and people are able to appreciate the sport for what it is.”

This, though, is where they intersect.

FILA has done a commendable job of promoting the work of female referees, even — especially — at a male-only event such as the World Cup. The Iranians? They’re OK if a woman works as what’s called the “mat chairman” — that is, the official who sits table-side in the shadows and confirms the on-mat referee’s scores. But they “request” that a woman not work as the referee, as one did Sunday night in Burroughs’ 15-4 victory in the 74 kilogram/163-pound class over Ukraine’s Giya Chykhladze.

FILA officials are acutely aware of all of this. Rest assured Iran would otherwise have had the world championships by now.

It is reportedly the case, for instance, that official policy in Iran bars women from being spectators at events such as wrestling and soccer matches.

This is why Iran has been relegated to events on the calendar such as the 2013 World Cup, held in Teheran.

It’s also why there is no one from Iran on FILA’s ruling council, its bureau. Including the honorary president, a Rio 2016 coordinator, continental presidents, even a member suspended until next year, it features 24 personalities — and yet no one from Iran. It’s obvious why.

It's entirely uncertain whether isolation is the answer.

And the corollary — whether the regime believes it has sufficient leverage, confident the Olympic world would not want to do with Iran what was done years ago with South Africa over apartheid.

What to do about a country that has such passionate fans? If your metric is Facebook and Twitter, the United States is wrestling’s No. 1 fan base. No. 2? Iran. Measured by comments and shares, Iran is far and away your leader. The No. 1 city in the world for fan involvement? Teheran.

USA Wrestling sponsored the first American sports team to compete in Iran after the 1979 revolution. A U.S. freestyle team competed in the 1998 Takhti Cup in Teheran. Afterward President Clinton hosted the five wrestlers — Zeke Jones, Kevin Jackson, Melvin Douglas, Shawn Charles and John Giura — at the White House, with presidential spokesman Mike McCurry saying, “People-to-people contact is something useful for both nations.”

Jones is now the U.S. freestyle coach. He led the team to a third-place finish at the LA World Cup.

An American Greco-Roman team is due to go to Iran in May. The Americans have been to Iran 11 times since the revolution.

Iran’s LA World Cup delegation marked its 13th time a wrestling delegation has come to the United States since 1979.

Of course the stands Saturday and Sunday included plenty of women. No issues. The Iranian wrestlers waved to all in attendance. Some of the wrestlers even blew kisses.

As for people-to-people understanding, Iranian wrestler Hassan Rahimi, the 2013 world champion at 57 kilograms/125 pounds, said Sunday, “I have great memories from being here and being amongst Iranians. This is the first time our team has come to Los Angeles. We were supposed to come last year but some things came up and we couldn't make it.

“We're going to leave with a lot of really good memories and we hope to return. There's a lot to see in Los Angeles, Hollywood – for the worlds, it's one of the leading tourist destinations.”

On the mat, there can be no question of Iran’s dominance.

Iran won the 2013 freestyle world championships. Coming to Los Angeles, the Iranians had finished first or second in the last five World Cups, seven of the last eight.

In Saturday’s pool action, the Iranians were so much better than everyone — except for the Americans — that it was like watching a Mack truck square off in a demolition derby against a VW bug.

With rowdy — and knowledgeable — fans blowing horns and yelling “Iran!” the Iranians took it to Armenia, 8-0, and Turkey, 7-1. Then they defeated the Americans, 5-3.

On Sunday, the Iranians made short work of India, 8-0.

The domination of India was so thorough the Iranians did not give up a single point.

Against Turkey, three of the matches were 11-0; another was 11-1; a fourth was 10-0.

Two of the eight matches against Armenia ended in pins.

After rolling through Pool B, the Iranians met Russa — which had cruised undefeated through Pool A — in Sunday night’s finals.

Christakis Alexandridis, the Russian coach, had said Saturday that while he had a strong team, he also had a young team.

The Iranians, buoyed by the crowd, prevailed, 6-2. Four of the matches were shutouts.

Iran technical manager Ali Reza Rezaie said afterward, "We're really happy with the result. We're so glad we were able to make our fans here and in Iran proud. We plan to keep the success going."

For sure. Right?

Wrestling's handshake moment

Russia put troops on the Ukrainian mainland for the first time Saturday, deploying 80 soldiers along with four helicopter gunships and three armored vehicles to seize a natural gas terminal distribution station near Crimea. Crimea is set to vote Sunday whether to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. Ukraine’s government and Western governments have denounced the vote as illegal.

What role, if any, can sports play amid such turmoil?

The Olympic movement aims to move the world toward peace. Can it?

What of the symbolism in the protest Saturday in Sochi by the Ukrainian cross-country ski team at the Paralympics? On the podium, as the rival Russians collected their golds, the Ukrainians — winners of silver — covered their medals in silent protest.

“It is a silent protest, fighting for peace for everyone … because the situation in Ukraine didn’t change,” Ukraine team official Nataliya Harach would later tell Associated Press.

Here in Los Angeles, at wrestling’s annual World Cup, the Ukraine and Russian men’s freestyle wrestling teams squared off in pool play, beforehand the two squads meeting in the middle of the mat for the traditional handshakes. In some cases, there were genuine hugs.

“Sport is not political,” a Ukrainian national team coach, Yurii Nazarenko, would say later. “Just go wrestle,” adding a moment later, “We can’t really fight about anything.”

Before each of the eight individual matches, the two wrestlers, one Ukrainian, one Russian, one in red, the other in blue, would once more shake hands. Afterward, no matter the result — Russia defeated Ukraine, 7-1 — again they shook hands.

At the end of every match, each Ukrainian wrestler shook hands with the Russian delegation. And vice-versa.

“They come on the mat, they fight like warriors and then they shake hands and then they shake hands again," Nazarenko said speaking through a translator. "That is the beauty of the sport.”

Christakis Alexandridis, the Russian coach, said, “They are our brothers. We support our brothers. We don’t go for political ideas. We go for sport ideas. A political situation can happen to any family. We will be brothers forever.”

This, bottom line, is why wrestling has been part of the Olympic Games since the beginning, why its adherents fought so fiercely to keep it in the program last year when the International Olympic Committee’s executive board had moved last February to give it the boot, why its ethos deserves renewed attention and respect.

Intriguingly, of course, Russian president Vladimir Putin was one of the biggest backers of the push to keep wrestling in the Games.

Putin was in Sochi on Saturday, where he watched part of the cross-country event, meeting with Ukraine Paralympic Committee president Valery Sushkevich.

“During the meeting, they discussed how the celebration of sport, especially one like the Paralympics, cannot and should not come under the influence of some or other processes on the international political agenda of the day,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

In Los Angeles, Andy Barth, head of the World Cup LA organizing committee, said at Saturday evening's formal opening ceremony, amid flags from Russia, Ukraine, Iran, the United States and elsewhere, “We come here as competitors, as wrestlers — we leave as friends.”

The president of the international wrestling federation, FILA, Nenad Lalovic of Serbia, was supposed to be at the World Cup event. Complications from a broken arm kept him in Europe. In a taped video message, he noted the obvious — teams from Russia and Ukraine, Iran and the United States — and said, “We send the world a message that friendship is always possible.”

This is because Olympic wrestling is fundamental, elemental and close.

The two guys — for this discussion, Saturday’s wrestling involved only men — have to confront each other, physically, mentally and emotionally. Of course, they have to compete. But it’s not like track and field, or swimming. They have to engage. They have to touch each other. There is no hiding.

As physical as wrestling is, and for sure it is physical, it is even more a test of wills.

That’s why there is so much respect and goodwill out there on the mat and within and among anyone who knows wrestling.

Alexandridis said, “In this place, all is friends. USA, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, no problem, all is friends. We are one family. The family name is wrestling family. We are here, one family. All is friends, everybody. Come on, everybody.”

A couple hours after Russia and Ukraine got after it, the Iranians and Americans met on the mat. Again, there were handshakes.

"It's best if sports and politics don't mix," Iranian wrestler Reza Yazdani, who competes at 97 kilos, or 213 pounds, said, speaking through a translator.  "In wrestling, it's best if the politics stay out of the sport itself and people are able to appreciate the sport for what it is."

U.S. coach Zeke Jones said, “Wrestling is the common bond in the world.

“If you look around the world, this is the sport that bonds the world together. I don’t know any other sport that has this many countries that have wrestling. And there is a certain amount of respect for a wrestler who bleeds out on the mat. We fight each other. But when we leave, we shake hands.

“We knew because we’re in the fight together that when we leave — we’re friends.”

In the second match, 61 kilograms, or 134 pounds, as Reece Humphrey of the United States and Masoud Esmailpoor Jouybari of Iran were going at it, the two wrestlers skittered off the mat, the Iranian finding himself on the edge of the other, where wrestlers from Turkey and Armenia were competing.

Before Humphrey and Jouybari started up again, they shook hands — no hard feelings.

“You gotta respect these guys,” Humphrey would say later.

“When you’re on the mat, you gotta fight. I knew I was getting ready to go into a war, a fistfight, basically. When he was pushing me out of bounds, he drove a couple extra steps, so I kind of threw him down. and it’s weird - because I could start to feel him break a little bit. But that guy doesn’t break. He just keeps coming. And then you slap hands. It’s like, ‘Hey, man, let’s go. It’s going to be a good fight.’ So, there’s always sportsmanship with a guy that can beat you or almost beat you.

“You’ve got to respect them. Because you know the work they put in. It’s got to be just as good as yours."

Humphrey built a 6-1 lead, pushed it to 8-1. Then, though, Jouybari cut it to 8-3, tied it up at 8 and, finally, won, 10-8. At the end, the two guys hugged.

Over the course of the evening, the Iranians defeated the Americans, 5-3.

At the 2013 World Cup in Teheran, with seven classes instead of eight, the Iranians defeated the U.S., 6-1. A couple of swings here and there Saturday night — besides Humphrey’s match, the Americans lost two by the same 1-0 score — and things might well have gone the other way.

That’s what was on Jones’ mind at the end of the night. Not world politics.

“I know the rest of the world is paying attention to it but when we go out there, we are shooting double-legs and trying to get gut-wrenches,” he said, using wrestling lingo for take-downs.

“We’re not thinking about what the political leaders are doing. We want to focus on what our wrestling matches are doing. Obviously they are a great, great competitor — Iran. We want to beat them. And they want to beat us. They showed up to win. And they did tonight.”

Wrestling: now, the spotlight

Russia massed troops and armored vehicles Thursday in at least three regions along Ukraine’s eastern border, the New York Times reported. In Washington, the Obama Administration deferred a request from Ukraine’s interim government for arms and ammunition, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Here in Los Angeles, the Ukrainian and Russian men’s freestyle teams are poised to wrestle this weekend as part of the year’s biggest tournament, the 10-team World Cup. Sports diplomacy, such as it was, was left to dinner late Thursday. At a pre-meet news conference at a hotel near Los Angeles international airport, the Ukrainians weren't on hand, leaving it to the Russian coach, Christakis Alexandridris, to hit the right notes. He said, speaking through a translator, “We live in a world where we can not do about politics, nothing. From our side, all the country, our politics is wrestling. That is the main goal — to be here.”

For a sport that a year ago was literally struggling just to stay relevant, Olympic wrestling — yes, wrestling — is all of a sudden one of the most captivating, dynamic, provocative things going.

This weekend’s World Cup — at the newly renovated Fabulous Forum in Inglewood, where the Lakers used to play, you know, when they would win — is action-packed with storylines.

The annual dual-meet competition has returned to the United States for the first time in 11 years.

Last year, the meet was held in Teheran. The Iranians won. Just to set the scene — the Iranians have been first or second in the last five World Cups, seven of the last eight.

In Teheran, the Russians came in second, the Americans third.

The Ukrainians were not there. They qualified for the LA World Cup by finishing in the top 10 — fourth — at the 2013 world championships, held in Budapest. Ukraine is back at the World Cup for the first time since 2011.

Russians tend to be very big on wrestling, and if the promoters were smart, they would have made sure that in particular the Russian-speciality stores around Fairfax and Melrose avenues in LA were big boosters of this event. No less an authority than actor Billy Baldwin,  the honorary chair of the weekend event who will be working the TV booth for Universal Sports, declared at the news conference that “half a million” people with some connection to Russia call Southern California home.

Another current: relations between Russia and the United States. Note that while President Obama and the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, bet some beers on the outcome of the men’s and women’s hockey games at the Sochi Olympics, Mr. Obama and Vladimir Putin — not so much.

Alexandridris, again: “Our federation, our team have the best friends on the American team. They are our partners. Every political change in Russia, they have always been our friends. And we are their friends. This will carry on in the future.”

Putin, of course, played a vital role in ensuring wrestling stayed on the Olympic program, the International Olympic Committee reinstating it last September through an all-members vote.

“We are here to make sure wrestling stays in the Olympic family,” Alexandridris said, adding a moment later, “That is what we have to strive [for] — all the teams here.”

The Turkish coach, Adem Bereket? A Sydney 2000 Games bronze medalist, he spoke not Turkish but Russian at the news conference, saying he brought a young team, acknowledging that in Pool A, “Our group is very strong. We have America, Iran. We try our best.”

Were it not for the escalation of tensions between Ukraine and Russia, certainly much more attention would be paid to the matchup — Saturday evening — between Iran and the United States, again in pool play.

More background:

The 2013 World Cup in Teheran took place just after the initial IOC executive board decision to yank wrestling off the Olympic program.

Jordan Burroughs, the U.S. middleweight gold medalist at the 2012 London Games, said Thursday he had originally been scared to go to Iran. He also allowed as he had watched the movie “Argo,” about the covert operation to rescue six U.S. diplomats from Teheran amid the 1979 hostage crisis, which exacerbated his concern.

Just to make things all the more interesting — in London, Burroughs had to defeat Iran’s Sadegh Saeed Goudarzi for the gold.

As it turned out, Burroughs said, the scene in Teheran was “awesome,” the Iranian fans “great,” treating him “better than I had ever been treated in my entire life.”

Last May, as part of the Olympic reinstatement campaign, the Iranians wrestled in New York. Then they were supposed to fly directly to LA for more wrestling. Didn’t happen. They flew right back to Iran, never really explaining why.

Asked what happened, the Iranian coach, Ali Reza Rezaie, an Athens 2004 Games silver medalist, didn’t really explain why — again.

Through a translator, he said initially, “The conditions were not prepared to bring the Iranian team at that time to Los Angeles. The goal was to come to New York. After competing in New York, [we] decided to go back to Iran for some conditions.”

The follow-up question — what about now? He didn’t answer directly, saying, “There is not any specific reason. But since we came to New York, we decided not to come to LA.”

A third try: “There is not any particular problem to come to LA. Right now, here, we are here for World Cup. LA is hosting. So we are here to compete for World Cup.”

Did anybody expect anything different?

Making the Iranian pull-out last year all the more mysterious is that there absolutely, positively are hundreds of thousands who claim Iranian descent in Southern California. Indeed, Iranian fans were waiting to welcome the team — the wrestling team! — upon arrival at LAX.

Understand — in Iran, wrestlers are the soccer team in Spain, or NBA or NFL stars here in the United States.

“We really enjoy coming to the United States,” Rezaie said, adding a moment later, “We really feel at home. We don’t have any problem coming here.”

Which is why, for the United States — again, third last year in Teheran — winning the 2014 World Cup is a priority.

“This is a bullseye for us,” the U.S. coach, 1991 world champ and Barcelona 1992 silver medalist Zeke Jones said. “We want to win this competition. Make no mistake.”

And for lots of reasons:

— To grow wrestling in the West, and especially in California. Contrary to the widespread American imagination, which might fix wrestling as something done in places such as Iowa, Michigan or Pennsylvania, California is USA Wrestling’s biggest membership state, Jones said.

“If we can have just one kid be inspired,” by the likes of Burroughs or Tervel Dlagnev, the U.S. super-heavyweight, or "even by an Iranian or a Russian wrestler, it inspires them to say, ‘I want to be an Olympic champion,’ and in California, that’s a place we can do that. We have had a tremendous legacy and tradition. Stephen Abas. Dave Schultz. Mark Schultz. I mean, the list goes on and on of our great wrestlers in California.”

— To promote wrestling itself. Even though the sport saved itself last year — that was so last year. Everyone involved understands wrestling has to keep proving that wrestling is, indeed, vital.

That’s why, for instance, Burroughs appeared Wednesday night on Arsenio Hall’s talk show. It’s why, too, he had this to say Thursday:

“We definitely need to kind of portray our sport as the great sport that it is. You watch ESPN and you see poker on ESPN more often than you see wrestling. I think — I don’t think people aren’t interested in wrestling. Wrestling’s a very interesting sport. It’s a great sport. It’s extremely exciting to watch. You just have to give it to the people where they have viewership, they can see it, they can be interested in it, follow it, do a lot of different aspects of social media, be on the internet, television and all those different kind of outlets.”

Wrestling could not ask for a better spokesman than Jordan Burroughs. The man is exceptionally thoughtful and well-spoken. He also had this observation when asked what the sport needs:

“It’s going to cost a lot of money, probably, but I would put us on on TV. I would take our best athletes and just put them on a large media [platform] — 'Mike & Mike' in the morning, ESPN, 'Pardon the Interruption,' all these different shows, the Ellen DeGeneres Show, Oprah Winfrey, whatever it is. A lot of different stuff. Because wrestlers are interesting personalties and are very appealing to general audiences.

“You know when you see a football player outside of his helmet, it’s like, those sports are getting recognition. Ask a guy what he did in high school and he probably played football or he wrestled. We’ve got a number of professionals who are successful people. We’ve got a number of connections through people who understand that, who recognize it, who give us the respect that we deserve. We have been asking for it. But it’s like — we don’t have to go out and beg for attention. You know, it’s like a dog. You go to your owner and you beg for food. We don’t want to be like that. We just want to do what we do  — that’s wrestle at a high level. Hopefully the recognition will come our way.”

And when, at an event like this weekend, there’s an overlay of perhaps potentially profound geopolitics?

“This is wrestling,” Jordan Burroughs said.

“Outside of all the politics, this is my occupation. I think the media kind of portrays a number of ideas on the actual event. Outside of everything that’s going on around the actual event, it’s a wrestling match. I’ve been wrestling since I was 5 years old.

“Regardless if I don’t like the guy across from me, regardless if our governments are arguing, we’re going to go out there and do what we’re best at, and that’s wrestle. We try to keep it within the circle. That circle is all that matters. Everything that’s going on outside, the turmoil, problems at home, problems with politics and governments and all that good stuff — it’s out of our reach, out of our grasp. So we just go out there and compete.”