Dr. Hab., Professor B.I. Tarakanov¹
Dr. Hab., Professor R.N. Apoyko¹
PhD, Professor S.I. Petrov¹
Postgraduate student N.V. Vorobyeva^1
1Lesgaft National State University of Physical Education, Sport and Health, St. Petersburg

Keywords: trend, women's freestyle wrestling, analysis, championship, medal, team standing, result, Olympic Games.

Background. With the growing popularity of the women’s movements (spearheaded by radical feminist organizations since the mid-20th century) with women striving to assert themselves in every traditional men’s area and business, women athletes have been increasingly successful in many sport disciplines including the wrestling sports [5]. The women’s wrestling is on the rise the world over, with its leaders competing in the annual women's world championships since 1989, in the women’s European championships since 1993, and in Olympic Games since 2004 (XXVIII Olympic Games) [2] .

Objective of the study was to make a retrospective progress analysis of the national women's freestyle wrestling sport and outline its modern progress trends.

Results and discussion. The women's freestyle wrestling in our country was first launched and advanced by a small group of the sport enthusiasts, with the first open RSFSR women's freestyle wrestling championship run in 1990 with only 40 athletes competing for the title. It was as soon as in 1991 that the women's freestyle wrestling was formally recognized by the National Sports Committee for Sport of the USSR that (1) approved the initiative to establish women's freestyle wrestling groups in the national sports school system; (2) run the first (and only) women's freestyle wrestling championship of the Soviet Union; and (3) sent the national women's freestyle wrestling team to compete at the World women's freestyle wrestling Championship where it was the seventh on the team scoreboard [7].

Since the 1990s, the new women's freestyle wrestling has made a fast progress in the country in terms of the geographical coverage and numbers of athletes and competitions, with the women's freestyle wrestling elite trained at the Olympic Sports Center base in Podolsk and demonstrating descent competitive progress in the world top-ranking events. The national women's freestyle wrestling leadership was asserted at the first (1993) European Championship in Ivanovo where the Russian women's freestyle wrestling competitors won every final bout and gold medals in nine weight classes [2]. Since then for a few periods the national women's freestyle wrestling elite has been ranked among the world leaders as verified by the national accomplishments in the world championships: see Table 1.

Table 1. National women's freestyle wrestling elite accomplishments in the world championship, in between the Olympic Games

As demonstrated by Table 1, the Russian women's freestyle wrestling team was on its peak in the four-year period of 1993-1996 (2 gold, 7 silver and 7 bronze medals) when it was always in the top-three on the team scoreboard; and in 1995 even defeated the-then leading Japan women's freestyle wrestling team [4]. It was in that period that S. Ganachueva (1995) and O. Smirnova (1996) won for the first time the world women's freestyle wrestling champion title for Russia.

In the next four-year period, however, the national women's freestyle wrestling made a notable regress, with the annual medal standings still keeping within the range of 7 to 10 albeit the team standings constantly sagging. Thus in 1997-2000, 2001-2004, 2005-2008, 2009-2012 and 2013-2016 the team standings averaged 3.25, 4.0, 4.5, 5.5 and 5.75, respectively; with the regress explainable, on the one hand, by the growing competitiveness on the global arenas, and on the other hand, by the dismissive and even contemptuous attitudes of the Russian freestyle wrestling sport elite to the women's freestyle wrestling [6].

The regress trend of the national women's freestyle wrestling elite had been increasingly evident in the world women's freestyle wrestling championships despite the fact that by the late 1990s the sport discipline was globally popular and was about to qualify for the Olympic Games [8]. The national analysts tend to prioritize the following reasons for the regress: low efficiency of the local coaching service; poor communication and coordination of the national team management with the local women's freestyle wrestling clusters; still insufficient theoretical and practical provisions for the women's freestyle wrestling recruitment and progress projects; too intensive rotation in the national team coaching groups, with most of the coaches relying on their own past wrestling experiences and accomplishments in the men’s freestyle wrestling and having no experience in the women’s wrestling [2]. These and other factors have inhibited progress of the national women's freestyle wrestling sport on the whole albeit some women athletes were still successful including the above-mentioned S. Ganachueva and O. Smirnova plus A. Kartashova (2002), Z. Rakhmanova (2011) and N. Vorobyova (2015).

Furthermore, Table 1 shows that the national women's freestyle wrestling sport reports 60 medals won in the world championships for the study period i.e. approximately 8% of the total medal stock – that may seem quite a respectable achievement. This figure, however, includes only 5 gold medals i.e. about 2.6% of the total gold stock; followed by 25 silver medals accounting for about 13% of the total silver stock of the world championships. Some analysts acknowledge these achievements of the Russian women's freestyle wrestling whilst the others cannot but feel the mounting problems of the sport as demonstrated particularly by the national athletes’ failures in the finals. As reported by Table 1, they won only 5 final bouts out of 30 (16.7% success rate) versus 25 defeats – that is 5 times more (83.3%). The Olympic records of the national women's freestyle wrestling sport look a bit better as demonstrated by Table 2 hereunder.

Table 2. National women's freestyle wrestling elite accomplishments in the Olympic Games

Table 2 reports 7 medals won by the national women's freestyle wrestling elite in the Olympics for the period including 1 gold, 4 silver and 2 bronze medals – that account for some 10% of the total medal stock. It is noteworthy that the silver medals dominate and account for 22% of the total Olympic Games silver stock for the period. However, the gold medals won for the period account for only 5.6% of the total gold offer and this is the reason for the national team being ranked #4 in the medal standing under Japan, Canada and China for the period. This standing underlines once again the competitive regress of the national women's freestyle wrestling elite, particularly in the final bouts where it scored only 1 win in 5 bouts (20%).

It may be pertinent to mention that a few prior study reports [1] with analyses of the Japan versus Russia women's freestyle wrestling competitive progresses found one more set of the national drawbacks in the sport management and progress aspects. The technical and tactical fitness of the Russian wrestlers were found lower in every test rate, particularly in the defense aspects including the poor dependability, poor tactical versatility, low determination in the fight tactics and insufficient dedication, i.e. unwillingness to compete till the last second of the bout. These drawbacks regretfully came to the surface in the last two (2017, 2018) world women's freestyle wrestling championships that were totally lost by the national women's freestyle wrestling teams – that ended up close to the bottom of the top-twenty on the team scoreboard. Thus in 2017 World Championship they won only one bronze medal having 8 wins in eight weight classes; and in 2018 World Championship no one medal was won, with only 6 bouts won in ten weight classes. These failures on the eve of the upcoming XXXII Olympic Games could not but raise concerns in the national sport community.

Therefore, our retrospective analysis of the national women's freestyle wrestling sport history and modern trends shows the gradual but steady competitive regresses on the global arenas due to the chronic errors in the training system design and management solutions – that have largely applied the models and methods traditional for the men’s freestyle wrestling sport with its high-intensity training tools – that may secure high albeit short-term competitive accomplishments at sacrifice of the long-term competitive fitness rapidly undermined by  fatigue, overtraining and injuries.

We believe that the above errors may be corrected, provided the national sport decision-makers revise the theoretical and practical training provisions for the women's freestyle wrestling sport and undertake a reform with a special priority to the modern training models. The reform should:

• Redesign the institutional provisions for the women's freestyle wrestling sport to: increase the level of trust and respect to the local coaches and improve their cooperation with the national team coaches; cut down the women's freestyle wrestling elite training periods at the central training camps; make more fair the national system of qualifications for the major international competitions; never more run qualifications only one-two weeks prior to the top-ranking events; offer an advancement/ upgrade course system for the women's freestyle wrestling coaches; take efforts to lure much more girls and young women in the women's freestyle wrestling groups; and, the last but not least, form a good teamwork climate to facilitate cooperation of the local coaches and athletes with the national team management on a most efficient basis;
• Offer new education and training provisions to drastically scale down the interval trainings in favor of the repetitive training tools; encourage the athletes’ progress in the sport-specific theoretical, technical and tactical issues; make a special emphasis on the individual techniques and tactics excellence aspects with a special attention to the counterattacks and defenses; and decisively improve the educational, biomedical and psychological provisions for efficient rehabilitation of the athletes on an individualized basis as required to maintain their best fitness standards.

Conclusion. The study data and analyses show the need for urgent solutions and efforts to reverse the national women's freestyle wrestling sport regress trend with the competitive failures on the global arenas – all the more that the 2019 World Championship may be used as a qualification event for the XXXII Olympic Games.

References

1. Vorobyeva N.V., Karelin A.A., Tarakanov B.I. Women's freestyle wrestling: is it possible to catch up with Japanese women? Uchenye zapiski Universiteta im. P.F. Lesgafta. 2018. no. 2 (156). pp.  33-38.
2. Nerobeev N.Yu., Tarakanov B.I. Theoretical and practical aspects of women's sports training in freestyle wrestling in view of sexual dimorphism. St. Petersburg: Olimp publ, 2012. 140 p.
3. Nerobeev N.Yu. Physical and technical-tactical training of freestyle wrestlers in view of influence of sexual dimorphism. Doct. diss. abstr.. St. Petersburg, 2014. 46 p.
4. Podlivaev B.A., Shakhmuradov Yu.A. Fundamentals of training of highly skilled female freestyle wrestlers. M.: [s.n..], 2013. 73 p.
5. Tarakanov B.I., Apoiko R.N., Nerobeev N.Y. Women's freestyle wrestling as full participant of international Olympic movement. Uchenye zapiski un-ta im. P.F. Lesgafta, 2013, no. 9 (103), pp. 170-174.
6. Tarakanov B.I., Nerobeev N.Yu., Apoiko R.N. Formation of training system in women's freestyle wrestling as important area of ​​activity of scientific pedagogical school of wrestling theory and methodology department. Scientific pedagogical schools of university: scientific works: Yearbook. St. Petersburg, 2014. pp. 52-63.
7. Khutbeev Kh.M. Women on the carpet. Freestyle wrestling: Information-method. Col.. M.: Goskomsport publ., 1992. pp. 53-57.
8. Dusson M. Interview with Mr. Michel Dusson on the Occasion of the European Championship. Wrestling Review. 1997. no. 2. P. 10.

Corresponding author: b.tarakanov@lesgaft.spb.ru

Abstract

The constant striving of women to stand toe to toe with men and heightened activity of feminist organizations in the middle of the 20th century in all spheres of public life, including sports, resulted in the assimilation by women of various types of sports activities, including wrestling. The article is devoted to the results of a retrospective analysis and current trends in the development of female freestyle wrestling in Russia. It shows the dynamics of sporting achievements of domestic female wrestlers at world championships and the Olympic Games in a non-random manner.

It was found that at the world championships of the 90s of the last century the Russian athletes invariably ranked among the prizewinners in the team standings, but then their results began to gradually decrease and reached a critical level. This is due to the permanent errors in the athletic training process planning, the traditional use of training tools and methods typically applied to male wrestlers, the predominant use of extreme training tools in large volumes, which in many cases leads to a decrease in working capacity of female athletes, overfatigue, overtraining, injuries rather than an increase in their sports results.

In this view, it is proposed to implement a wide range of organizational and educational actions in order to increase the effectiveness of the training for highly-skilled female wrestlers.