The delegation consisting of the United States Greco-Roman Olympic Team has taken the first step towards the Paris Games. Between Monday and Tuesday, the four athletes — Kamal Bey (77 kg, Army/WCAP), Payton Jacobson (87 kg, Sunkist/NTS), Joe Rau (97 kg, TMWC), and Adam Coon (130 kg, NYAC/Cliff Keen) along with members of the coaching staff began trekking across the Atlantic Ocean in advance of this coming Friday’s Opening Ceremonies. The Team will then shift back into preparation mode for the final push to the actual tournament, which takes place August 5-8. Below is the USA Greco-Roman Olympic schedule as previously reported.
July 26
Olympic Games Opening Ceremonies (Paris, FRA)
July 27-August 2 — Normandy, FRA
On-site Training Camp
August 5-8 — Paris, FRA
2024 Olympic Games
NT Coach Q&A
On Sunday night, United States National Team head coach Herb House was nearly done packing for his flight to Paris the following afternoon. Camp at the Olympic Training Center had just wrapped a few days prior, and so there were items to discuss with regards to that gathering, as well as to the roster’s state of mind with the Olympic tournament fast approaching.
5PM: Going into the camp, what were the biggest goals that you had for each individual athlete, as well as the biggest concerns for each individual athlete?
Coach Herb House: My biggest goal for each one was for them to work on the items that they needed to improve on. For them to have a strategy, a game-plan. To make sure that when we step out on the mat, we’re not just wrestling. We have a plan before we get out there. The second one was, and it was a big one, was to make it out of the camp without any serious injuries. That was a big concern because I knew that we would not have time to recover if there were any serious injuries during the camp.
Each practice at camp was quick and intense. We had one-hour go’s, but it was a very intense one hour. Each practice was only an hour, so we were in and out — but they were intense. They were brutal, right? We mixed in conditioning and were pushing ourselves to make sure that we believe that we are in shape and can push that pace for six minutes.
5PM: Where did the plan come from for these compressed practices?
HH: Every international camp we go to, those guys don’t exceed one hour. But they go hard and they are fast and powerful practices. And it makes sense, right? The longer you are in there, the more you risk losing the attention spans of the wrestlers, especially if you’re in there for two hours or however long some others might practice. On top of that, long practices lead to more injury risk. Someone is going to get injured. The body is going to fatigue. Another thing we thought about is how at every camp we have, by the time the end of camp comes — like the last two days — practices are half-empty. Some of these guys can’t make it through camp. They are too banged up or beat up, or they are just too tired to wrestle anymore. A lot of the international camps we go to are one hour, but it’s a really hard hour during these practices.
5PM: Well then this seems like a streamlined approach considering it wasn’t that long ago when you had returned from being overseas. It keeps a similar protocol, I would imagine.
HH: Yes, and that is really why I wanted to do it. We had just been overseas and I wanted to keep that same practice mode. That is basically what we did. We kept the same mode that we were in overseas. I tried to make sure that they had the same mindset, as well. Going forward, this is pretty much how we will be doing it, anyway. We are only going to be doing these types of practices.
5PM: Aside from various National Team personnel, who did you bring in?
Coach Herb House: For this camp, we had the Hungarian heavyweight (Dariusz Vitek) and the Cuban heavyweight who lives in the United States. We had Cohlton Schultz for Adam (Coon). For everyone else, we relied on our own athletes, though Payton did have a couple of foreigners who worked with him at Northern Michigan. Everyone had a mission, but we really just wanted to focus on the people we had. We just wanted our athletes to focus on any mistakes they might have been making and then build off of that. For example. we even brought Mohamed (Abdelfatah) back in to work with Joe.
5PM: That was my next question, how did you utilize the in-and-out supplemental coaches who were also in camp?
HH: We were getting too many appearances, so what I did was assign everyone a job. I don’t want a lot of people coaching our Olympians. Everyone wants to help out the Olympians, and I really appreciate that they want to do that — but it’s too much for the Olympians. They are hearing from too many people. One person is saying to do it this way, another is saying to do it that way… So it just became, Hey — this is your personal coach, this is who you’re going to listen to, and this is it. I didn’t want all of these coaches coming over to these guys trying to tell them to do A, B, and C.
5PM: How has it been as far as managing the environment and circumstances surrounding the athletes? Unfortunately, it is different making an Olympic Team compared to a World Team because there is added attention from the outside and people who normally don’t pay attention to Greco suddenly want a piece of these guys.
HH: For the Olympians, one thing we did is schedule a meeting for them with a psychologist. What he did was help these guys with their stress, with how to plan, and how to alleviate their stress with techniques. It was a lot for them. It was a lot on their plates. These are all first-year Olympians, so we tried to make sure that they felt comfortable and motivated. We want to motivate them. They have a lot of pressure on their hands. Say if someone got scored on in practice. They don’t like it. They might think, Oh, man, I’m doing something wrong. I can’t be getting scored on like this. I would have to reassure these guys, ‘It’s okay, it’s only practice, this is where you allow that to happen so that you can find a solution and fix it’. The big thing is making sure that they can control the stress that they are facing. Because, it’s a big stressor for them.
5PM: How about you? This has all been building towards what takes place in two weeks. On one hand, it has been a long year. On the other, it has been a short one. How have you been reconciling preparing a Team for the Olympics with all of the added attention, plus just getting a new roster member (Bey) only a few weeks ago?
HH: Right. Well, for me, I’m pretty good. I’m used to multi-tasking. I’ve been doing that my whole life. On top of that, this is my third Olympics. I’ve been here. I know what it takes to get it done. I just have to take one step at a time. You do the best you can. You go out there, give it your all, stick to the game-plan, and hopefully it works out for the best. You have to trust your athletes, their personal coaches, and the support staff. And that is something that I’m pretty good at doing. I lay it out and then we all come together. I try to make sure that everyone is a part of every plan that we have. That’s the one thing that makes Greco so strong. It’s not just me creating this. I involved everyone. Everyone from our support staff to our personal coaches, that way we all have some kind of responsibility to this Team. I think that motivates them to help push the Team to go further, too.
5PM: What is going to happen after arriving in France and into the next week?
Coach Herb House: We are going to get to Paris, check into the Olympic Village, and the first couple of days are just going to be logistics, processing, and things like that. We have one day for processing, when we get our uniforms, and the next day is media day. Then it will be the Opening Ceremonies, and from there it will be off to Normandy. We’ll be having two practices a day leading up to competition day, and we leave Normandy for Paris on August 2nd. Then we get ready for the Olympics right after that.
Another Q&A with US National Team Herb House will be released prior to the 2024 Olympic Games.
Listen to “5PM57: Kamal Bey and David Stepanyan” on Spreaker.
Listen to “5PM56: Rich Carlson and Spencer Woods” on Spreaker.
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