Where is Felipe Martinez now? Anyone know?

[leshismore 216]

Where is Felipe Martinez now? Anyone know?

[wiedsworld 14]

Where is Felipe Martinez now? Anyone know?

He is finished with wrestling.

 

http://www.toledoblade.com/HighSchool/2 ... areer.html

[LAWRENCE 1]

This really shows you the problem with the American system.

 

too many competitions and tremendous pressure at an early age.

 

in our neck of the woods we have a former russian olympic medalist and world medalist.

 

he feels we over compete. in russia you compete maybe 6x a year. In the USA that is done in a hs season

in 3-6 weeks. emphasis in russia is perfecting technique in all situations for each move.

[Coach_J 2,188]

Agree, Lawrence. A dual and a tournament every week is insane. The Russians I have known shake their head at our system. It's not designed for the long-haul for the vast majority of participants, but I don't see it changing anytime soon.

[TLS62pa 56]

We're an instant gratification society. You're gonna tell me that we're going to want to train 3-4 hours a day to only compete 6x a year?

 

To me the burnout comes from the rigorous, year-round, training regimens. The competition is the fun part!

[IronChef 1,134]

If you want to argue that Americans wrestle too much, go for it, but I don't think Felipe Martinez should be the example you use. There was clearly a lot going on that had absolutely nothing to do with competing too often.

 

Also, the American system is set up into seasons with fall, winter, and spring sports. Our sports are tied to our schools, which is not the case in Russia or almost anywhere else. Thus, the athletic calendar has to conform to the school calendar and the desire of many athletes to play more than one sport. The system works great for the vast majority of those involved. They get to participate and compete a lot in a sport. You can argue that it is not the absolute ideal system for creating gold medalists, but you can counter that argument by saying that it works well for the 99.999% of wrestlers who will never contend for a spot on a world team.

[madcat11 436]

This really shows you the problem with the American system

 

I think it was family issues.

[superold 34]

If you want to argue that Americans wrestle too much, go for it, but I don't think Felipe Martinez should be the example you use. There was clearly a lot going on that had absolutely nothing to do with competing too often.

 

Also, the American system is set up into seasons with fall, winter, and spring sports. Our sports are tied to our schools, which is not the case in Russia or almost anywhere else. Thus, the athletic calendar has to conform to the school calendar and the desire of many athletes to play more than one sport. The system works great for the vast majority of those involved. They get to participate and compete a lot in a sport. You can argue that it is not the absolute ideal system for creating gold medalists, but you can counter that argument by saying that it works well for the 99.999% of wrestlers who will never contend for a spot on a world team.

 

 

I don't see how that's a legitmate counter argument. It would be if you could somehow demonstrate that 99.999% of wrestlers are better off wrestling as many matches as they do today. Why is a wrestling a tournament and/or a dual every week better than competing a few times a month?

[josefsmoe 43]

The discussion about the American system is valid although I'm not going to weigh in one way or the other.

 

I'm just going to agree with the posters who say that your argument does not apply to Felipe. Like a lot of kids Felipe decided that as a high school junior and senior he just had interests other than training hard for wrestling. To show how talented he was, he won a state title his junior year without even trying. And his senior year he became the only wrestler in Ohio history who was going for his fourth state title and did not win (in fact did not even qualify). Felipe no longer had the desire to compete. This would have likely happened to him in any system. In fact most people believe that if he would have stayed at Graham which is the American system through and through this discussion about Felipe might have been centered around how good of a match he and Jason Welch or St. John just had at the NCAA tournament.