By DAVID LEGGAT
When it comes to hoping for a little green man on your shoulder at these Games, no sport comes close to wrestling.
When the draw was being done early today for tonight's opening session, coaches were offering silent prayers for a favourable outcome.
The problem for the grapplers is
that there is no seeding system.
They fight in pools - 12 fighters in a division means four groups of three, eight means two groups of four - to find those who advance into medal contention.
But the inherent inadequacies of that system mean one pool could have wrestlers from, say, Canada, England, South Africa and India, who are tipped to be the strongest nations, with another comprising representatives of Cameroon, Kenya, Malta and the Gambia.
"There used to be a Commonwealth championship tournament, where these guys could go and get a ranking," New Zealand coach Malcolm McBeth said.
"But that's not been held in the last couple of years. That makes it very difficult and we've all got our fingers crossed."
Wrestling is one of those sports with a language all of its own.
This is the freestyle form, the key aspects being strength, agility and technical ability.
It is not Greco-Roman, which has some holds which can be truly puzzling to the uninitiated and bears no relation to what Hulk Hogan and the meathead squad serve up as fake D-grade entertainment on our television.
New Zealand have all three of their Auckland-based competitors in action on the first day - Martin Liddle in the 55kg class, Iranian immigrant Ricardo Aryan in the 66kg division and big Nick Daly in the 84kg event.
Aryan, who has built up a reputation as a high-quality wrestler, is tipped as the most likely to succeed, with all depending on the draw.
The squad trained at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver en route to Manchester and tried to simulate contest conditions.
However, there is a limit to the help you can get from simulation and forward planning if the names come out of the hat in the wrong order.
Full coverage:
nzherald.co.nz/manchester2002
Medal table
Commonwealth Games info and related links
