Trials Worked For Cross’ Purposes

One thing about the Olympic Games: you come across a better class of loser.

Mohammad Talaei of Iran was just 3 seconds away from advancing to the freestyle wrestling quarterfinals at 125.5 pounds on Tuesday afternoon. Perhaps he was mentally clearing off space on the mantle for his medal, but suddenly he was taken down and his shoulders exposed to the mat by Aleksandr Guzov of Belarus, who wiped out the Irani’s 3-2 lead with those three points.

Inconsolable, Talaei had to be dragged from the mat by his wrists - where’s Bela Karolyi when you need him? - but at least managed a grudging handshake first.

Terry Brands, for all we know, may be still chiseling his forehead print into the walls of the Spokane Arena.

Kendall Cross remains a little amused that his greatest notoriety as a wrestler - to this point, anyway - stems from the tizzy he sent the defending world champion into at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Spokane just two months ago.

Needing two victories to bump Cross from the U.S. team at 125.5, Brands got one - then lost 7-6 and 8-7, after which he refused to shake hands with either his opponent or the referee, ran out of the arena, threw a chair at a wall and bolted to the parking lot, where he did a Sir Edmund Hillary number on a chain-link fence.

Light boor. Everything you always wanted in a wrestler. And less.

“I actually thought he’d be worse,” Cross offered.

On the opening day of freestyle here, Cross found things to be considerably tamer. So did the fans.

Perhaps it’s symptomatic of the enormity of what’s at stake, but a good many of Tuesday’s matches had all the drama of a traffic jam. Especially memorable was American Kurt Angle’s narrow win at 220 pounds over Cuba’s Wilfredo Suarez, in which the action peaked when the referee frisked the combatants. Determined inaction on the part of Kazakhstan’s Elmadi Jabrailov also foiled the gold medal hopes of the youngest U.S. wrestler, Les Gutches, who dropped a 2-1 decision in the third round.

Things are always friskier in the lower weights, but nothing Cross hasn’t seen before.

“Getting through our trials is the best preparation you could have for this,” he said. “Especially in my case where I’m having to beat somebody like Terry Brands.

“That guy got me ready for this kind of tournament. To prepare for him was to prepare for everybody in the world. So really, the hard part was making the team, for me. Because Terry Brands would come in here and win this tournament as well.”

Cross may be getting ahead of himself, but it’s confidence well-placed. Two wins and a bye on Tuesday put him a victory away from the gold medal match, his closest call a 4-2 decision of Japan’s Sanshiro Abe.

His best move of the tournament so far: the draw.

“You’re picking your destiny in there,” he said. “They had eggs - those little crack-open (plastic) eggs - and I was thinking, ‘Should I shuffle them around and grab the bottom one? But I took the top one and look at the position I’m in.”

Wait, don’t look.

“I can’t look at the greater scheme of things, though,” he said, “or I’ll scare myself right out of the gold medal. If I think there’s a gold medal at stake, I might choke.”

This wasn’t the most experienced team the U.S. could send to Atlanta, not with Olympians Kevin Jackson, Zeke Jones and Tim Vanni having been pushed aside. The U.S. staff was all too aware of the irony of Gutches losing to Jabrailov; Jackson, polished off by Gutches at the trials, has never lost to the former world champ.

At 28, Cross is one of only three two-time Olympians on the team - he was sixth in Barcelona - and yet he plays the greenhorn.

He enlisted Jones as his training partner - you can understand why it wouldn’t be Brands - because “he’s been in this position so many times that I wanted his knowledge going into every match,” Cross said.

And if he wanted to some psychological leverage, he may have manufactured that in Spokane, too.

“I’m not a complete unknown, but I’m sure the other countries had to be expecting Brands,” he said. “But now they’ve got to be thinking, ‘What’s this guy got? If he can beat Brands three times in one month, what does he have?’ I know I gained some respect just by making the team.

“I’m an uncertainty. They haven’t seen me at this level in a long time.”

Now that he’s back, what does Cross see?

“In 1992, I was looking at this like I was just glad to be here,” he said. “It was neat that I was on the team. Now, it would be a shame not to win this tournament. I’ll be somewhat disappointed with anything less than a gold medal, because I really think I’m the best one.”

Somewhat disappointed. Maybe even something to toss a chair about.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color Photos

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: LOCAL WATCH How athletes from Washington and Idaho fared on Tuesday: Men’s baseball: Travis Lee (Olympia), USA vs. Netherlands, hit a double and a home run - the Olympic tournaments 100th homer. Men’s basketball: John Stockton (Spokane) played just 9 minutes in the USA vs. Brazil quarterfinal game. Gary Payton (Seattle) started and scored 7 points and 5 assists in 23 minutes. Women’s team handball: Dawn Allinger (ex-WSU), USA vs. China, did not score as the U.S. team remained winless. Men’s canoe/kayak: John Mooney (Seattle) and Peter Newton (Bellevue) won their repechage, or second-chance race, in the 1,000-meter kayak and qualified for Thursday’s semifinal in the flatwater canoe and kayak competition.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review