Titan Games -- Gardner, Sanderson lose to Cubans...

Not sure how/if this is being covered in your neck of the woods, but out here this weekend there is a USOC-sponsored sports festival called "The Titan Games," being held at the Event Center at San Jose State. It's a festival of martial and strength based events, with three rings/mats in the arena holding simultaneous events.

My wife and I went to session 1 Thursday night, which was USA v. Mexico in karate, judo and boxing, as well as a ceremony honoring past Olympians like Dan Gable and Evander Holyfield. USA pretty much rolled over Mexico in everything that night. My head was spinning after trying to watch karate, boxing and judo at the same time, but you get used to it.

Last night, we didn't go, but both Rulon Gardner and Cael Sanderson (the guy who was 159-0 in NCAA) lost wrestling matches to Cubans. Gardner lost 3-0 in a Greco match, and Sanderson lost 3-2 in a freestyle match (Sanderson was winning 2-1 when time expired, but under Olympic rules you have to score 3 points to win, so it went to OT, where the Cuban, reigning Olympic silver medalist Yoel Romero, got a reversal point and then won after a throw). Also last night were USA-Japan in Taekwondo, USA-Puerto Rico in boxing, and USA v. the World in fencing.

I'm psyched about tonight, because we have fourth row seats by the wrestling mat for the featured event of the games, USA-Russia wrestling. Also tonight are the fencing and weightlifting championships, USA-Puerto Rico boxing finals, USA-Korea taekwondo (should be interesting), and USA-China judo.

There have also been daytime sessions the past couple days.

For those who are interested, this will be on ESPN2 in edited form in March.

(Talk about HEAVY security, BTW. Wow. I've never seen more cops/soldiers at a small public sporting event like this.)

 

Much better results for the star US wrestlers Saturday night (Sanderson, Gardner, Guerrero all won impressively). Best match was US greco wrestler TC Dantzler destroying his Russian opponent, with several spectacular throws. In typically low-scoring Greco, Dantzler was leading something like 13-1 when he finally pinned the other guy.

Overall, this was a pretty cool sports festival, although with three or more things going on at once, coupled with rowdy announcers and loud music, it was a sensory overload.

Apparently the USOC is looking at having similar international festivals in other locations while gearing up for 2004, so keep an eye out for it in your area.