Wrestling: NZ coach fights to keep Olympics spot

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Olympic wrestling coach Trent Scott will see a lawyer after receiving a letter last night from New Zealand's two Greco-Roman wrestlers saying they do not want him in Sydney.

Scott is determined to fight to keep his place in the Olympic team, even though his athletes want someone else to coach them at the Games.

But their choice, Reva Ghanbabi, an Auckland taxi driver who wrestled for Iran at the 1988 Olympics, cannot be part of the New Zealand team because he does not have citizenship.

One of the wrestlers, former Iranian soldier Rasoul Armani, said yesterday that he was very upset about the situation.

But he and team-mate Jotham Pellew had wanted a coach who had a better technical understanding of Greco-Roman wrestling than Scott.

Scott has won 16 national titles in freestyle wrestling, a different style also contested at the Olympics, but says he learned Greco-Roman in the United States.

He took the New Zealand fighters to the Oceania championships in Australia earlier this year, where they qualified for the Olympics.

But it was not until a few days ago that he heard that Armani and Pellew did not want to work with him at the Games.

After receiving a letter from the wrestlers, Scott said at home in New Plymouth last night that he was "absolutely gutted" and wanted to fight to still go to Sydney.

While Scott has not been sacked, the New Zealand Wrestling Union have made it clear that it would now be better for the harmony of the team if he stayed home.

President Selwyn Metcalfe said there was little option.

"If you've got two wrestlers that won't respect the coach, the environment would not be of the standard required to get the best out of the wrestlers," he said.

There is a similar sentiment in the New Zealand Olympic Committee - executive director Michael Hooper said it was "a pragmatic thing."

"I can understand Trent's disappointment," he said. "But we haven't knocked him off the team. We just have to take the appropriate actions to make sure our athletes have access to the coaching advice and support they want at the Olympics."

It is unlikely that there will be an official replacement for Scott as the Greco-Roman coach.

Freestyle coach Malcolm McBeth will manage the whole wrestling team, while Armani's personal coach Ghanbabi could go to Sydney, but not as an official member of the Kiwi contingent.

The NZOC are looking to get Ghanbabi a pass which will let him into the Olympic wrestling venue to help train Armani and Pellew. He will have to pay his own way.

Ghanbabi has lived in New Zealand for nine years, but has never sought citizenship - ruling him out as part of the New Zealand team.

He said he sent his passport off for an Australian visa yesterday.

He said: "It should not matter that I am not a New Zealander. They need someone to help them in Sydney, and I am the only one - the only one with the right experience for the Olympics."

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