Monday November 10th 2025
What a long six days! I returned two Mondays ago from the U23 World Championships at 2:30 in the afternoon and my last two weeks have been allocated for recovery and playing catchup. As a teacher, I had many things to arrange before I left and, due to the nature of the courses I teach, not to mention the school that I’m at, I couldn’t leave them “busy work” as some refer to it. It’s only now that I’ve had a couple of weeks to decompress and reflect a bit on what I experienced at the U23 Worlds. Using those experiences will allow myself and the athletes that I coached to grow and develop so that I can better help them to achieve better results next year. It’s also significant that one of my goals as a coach was to coach at the World Championships, so another personal milestone has been reached.
The Women’s Team (Photo property of BigJoeWrestling)
It occurred to me that not many coaches will get a chance to coach at such a high level tournament. Some people may work all their lives, be extremely knowledgable and dedicated, but may never get the chance to coach at such an event, whether due to not having an athlete qualify or not being selected. And some coaches may not even be good enough. Like athletes, skill comes into play and not every coach has it. Needless to say, I was thankful for the experience.
The Men’s Team (Photo property of BigJoeWrestling)
Among the many things that I saw at the Worlds, the intensity is what stood out to me the most. At that level, the athletes and the coaches are dialled in because one small mistake will mean the end of your tournament and to depend on the repechage to get back in is a horrible way to spend the rest of the competition.
It’s with this in mind, I thought I would share some of the experiences that I had at the tournament, starting with some of the things leading up to the competition and finishing with things that happened during the tournament. With that being said, I thought I would start with the our voyage there.
Waiting in Frankfurt
I left Montreal on Tuesday evening, with a stopover in Frankfurt, before boarding the plane for Serbia. These days, a lot of the World Championships for wrestling are held in Eastern European countries that may have been part of the Soviet Bloc, due to the ease in which Russians and their allies are allowed to compete. Russian aggression in Ukraine has caused many countries to ban Russia from participating in some sporting events and as result, Russian athletes and their allies must compete under the UWW banner and are referred to as Athletes of an Independent Nation. Arriving in Belgrade, we boarded the shuttle bus for Novi Sad. On our bus were athletes from the United States, Germany, Russia and India. Travel and a long voyage can have an effect on the athlete’s performance and which is why I thought I would mention it.
The entrance to the complex, it’s monstrous (Photo property of I❤️NS)
We were brought to the competition venue, which was at the Spens Sports and Business Arena, and then placed in individual transports to be brought to our respective hotels. The Spens Sports and Business Arena is a monster of a complex, a throwback to the Old Soviet Days in which buildings were built to last and intimidate. Seemingly housing almost every sport, I never did see everything in the complex while I was there.
A long corridor to seemingly nowhere
The interior of the venue, while being rough and antiquated, nevertheless managed to convey a sense of grandeur, which was appropriate for the event. Made out of concrete and steel, you will never see construction like that in the modern era. I can only of what it must have looked like in its early days. Simultaneously, it looked able to withstand a bomb!
The warmup area was pretty big….
…. As was the competition venue
The quality of wrestling was high, as was to be expected at an event like this. Many of the athletes had competed for either their Senior or their Junior teams so the level of international experience was in evidence. Of note, where our Canadian contingent settled down, I had a direct view of where the Japanese team was warming up and prepping. It goes without saying that watching such high level athletes perform their warmup and technique with such discipline and precision gives us an insight of what we need to do and how far we need to go.
The corral
During my time there, I would also like to point out that members of the Canadian Coaching staff welcomed me in and kept me involved throughout the tournament. While I’ve either competed in the same era as some of these coaches, or wrestled against their athletes, I knew every coach there and it was nice to see that we were all in it for the same reason; the success of the Canadian athletes. They even got me involved in other matches after my athletes had finished, rather than leaving me on the sidelines which also a nice surprise. That ability to work together is something I know very well as I have the privilege to work with some exceptional people who also try to keep me involved.
Of all the people to run into in Novi Sad……..
Finally, it should be pointed out that while the results were not what I had hoped for, the learning experience was invaluable. I’ve been exposed to those experiences through other international events as well as through the stories from my fellow coaches and teammates. So while I knew what I was getting into and what to expect, being immersed into it was something entirely different. It gave me some insights as to how I can improve as a coach and what steps our athletes need to do in order to achieve success. Needless to say, if asked to go again, I would agree immediately. Here’s hoping to many more trips to the World Championships!
