Part of Four Days in London: A memoir about trying to find a way to the Olympics, and finding something else instead. This story takes place in September 2009.

Gust Avrakotos: There’s a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse… and everybody in the village says, “how wonderful. The boy got a horse” And the Zen master says, “we’ll see.” Two years later, the boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, “How terrible.” And the Zen master says, “We’ll see.” Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight… except the boy can’t cause his legs all messed up. and everybody in the village says, “How wonderful.”

Charlie Wilson: Now the Zen master says, “We’ll see.” — Dialogue from the film Charlie Wilsons War

I walked over to the counter. I grabbed a small package of veggies and pulled out my debit card. I took notice of the image of a wolf with the words “Defenders of Wildlife” on it. It had been there so long that I sometimes forgot about it. I picked this debit card image when I was 18 because I thought it looked cool. The idea that my bank would donate a little money to them every time I used it was a bonus. After paying for my meal I took my mixture of veggies over to the trash barrel, removed the dressing, and walked over to my gate as I ate. That morning I had weighed in one pound over on my scale and knew I could eat one last small meal.

My attempt to take a cool picture before the advent of Instagram filters

As I sat by the gate I pondered the weekend. I was flying to San Jose for the 2009 US Open. I was happy that I was rooming with Peter*. Peter and I had known each other about as long as I had been in judo. He was one of the first people I had ever competed against and we had become good friends through the years. In addition we both had new Yugioh decks to test against each other.

What had started as a nostalgic “remember that card game we each played when we were in our early teens” had turned into “maybe we should get some decks just to play when bored at the airport”. This activity led to its inevitable conclusion of us spending our Sundays at a comic shop with roughly two hundred dollars invested each in a nigh completely unnecessary but fun hobby. My mothers reaction when I dropped the metal box that contained my carefully constructed deck in the living room was entertaining. As cards fell across the floor, my mother who knew I was going to hang out with Peter said “So let me get this straight: two of the toughest in American judo are going to play yugioh with a bunch of twelve year olds?” I looked at her and said in a weak attempt to defend myself “we play against a lot of other college kids too.”

I came back to reality as the flight was called. A roughly five hour flight to San Jose from Boston while uncomfortable from a weight cut meant my initial plan to do some school work on the flight meant my intention of doing my invertebrate zoology homework had some promise. After boarding, taking some pictures with my phone, I opened the book and shortly discovered falling asleep would be easier than I thought. I completed several of the drawings of mollusks and fell asleep for the rest of the flight.

After landing, checking in, and getting my necessary supplies for rehydrating after the weigh ins the next day, I spent the afternoon with Peter and his friend Robert. Rob was from the Canadian team and while we knew each other, this was the first time I had really spent a lot of time around him. He and I both discussed how we were trying to combine judo with going to college. He mentioned his plans to go to grad school, and I remarked that I thought I’d like to do that some day. What I didn’t mention was that my grades at that moment didn’t reflect that.

US Open was an important tournament for both Peter and I. Peter had just missed the world team for 2009, which while wasn’t integral to making the 2012 team, was still important. I still needed to reach my B classification so I could compete at higher level international tournaments. US Open was considered a B tournament, which meant it was credited as a serious international tournament, but not an A. I had just missed a medal round appearance the year before. Peter had never medalled at the tournament either.

Preparing to step on the mat at a tournament earlier in the year. The previous spring season had been a mixed bag for me. While I had won a national medal at Presidents Cup, I had struggled to adjust to a new weight class before moving back down to 81kgs.

That evening I checked the draws. I was the third seed and had a bye. I would fight the winner between Johnny Fernandez, another promising up and comer, and VEN. The player from VEN was good, but I thought I could beat him. Afterwards I’d have a winnable match against a fighter from San Jose state and I would be in the medal rounds.

Just before going to sleep Peter and I talked about how important the tournament was. If he won it would pull him into the number one spot in the country, and give him a great shot at making the world championships. If I won, it would settle me into the number 2 slot and I’d have a great seed for the national championships and world trials the next spring. I think we both went to sleep with dreams of what these wins would lead to.

The next morning was trouble free. We both made weight and got into the venue without difficulty. We had two coaches at the tournament: Big Jim (Jimmy Pedro’s father) and Carrie. Big Jim spoke with all of us before the tournament. I even got an extra call from Dr, Rhadi Ferguson, who had been chatting with Coach Carrie and wanted to give me a motivational talk. Rhadi and I had started working together a few months prior.

I watched VEN and Fernandez compete against each other. I didn’t really pay any attention to Fernandez, who I expected to lose. VEN was incredibly tall for the weight class and was clearly decent on the ground. Still I was able to nail down his technical preferences and that was all I really needed.

When my number for my first match was called I was ready and alert. Carrie was in my coaching chair and I was competing in the center mat area. I bowed once to step onto the mat, and then again at the prompting of the referee to enter the competition area. With one final prompting I bowed to VEN as he did so for me, to indicate we respected each other and appreciate the opportunity to compete.

His reach was immediately a problem. I was tall for middleweight but he had at least two inches on me, potentially more. We furiously grip fought for the first few exchanges. I managed to get inside control on his lead lapel and instinctively began to reach for his sleeve. What I didn’t figure when I made this motion was how far away his hand actually was. In reaching for it I had actually placed myself off balance. I had opened a door and VEN’s lead leg for his uchimata stepped right in. He threw me for ippon and the match was over.

I wasn’t crushed yet. I knew he wasn’t going to lose to the player from San Jose and I would have another shot to medal. Still, Peter walked over to me and said something to me stuck with me for the next match. “Chris, you can tell yourself whatever you want about that match, but you weren’t fighting at your best in it. You are going to have another chance in the losers bracket. Do whatever you need to get your head in the right place.”

I had some time to kill and I spent it chatting with a few friends who were at the tournament. One of them was my friend Nate. Much of my teens was spent watching and rooting for Nate, who I had met while training at Jason Morris’s club in upstate New York. Nate was much older than I was, and had provided me some good advice while I was coming up as a junior. When I won junior nationals two years before he was one of the first people I talked to. Years later he and his wife, a 2008 Olympian, would encourage me to try to stick around for the Rio quad.

VEN did as expected and pulled me into the losers bracket. In my first round I would fight Fernandez and then fight the player from San Jose. I would likely fight France to get into the bronze medal match. This was doable. Carrie and Big Jimboth had to coach other athletes, so Peter who had coached me in the past, was going to step in and coach me from the sidelines.

The match with Fernandez started out fast. He was physically very strong and I was struggling to get a dominant grip against him. He stood with his left foot forward but was attacking with right sided attacks. This was a formula I found problematic, since I wasn’t used to this style of judo. Still the match was close and I was getting in attacks. A crucial moment suddenly appeared.

Fernandez had stepped in on a drop shoulder technique, in doing so my hand had slipped into place for my favorite strangle hold, the bow and arrow choke. Time stopped for just a moment. I had a decision to make. I could jump in for my favorite strangle hold but risk the referee calling a score for my opponent or I could be conservative and try to avoid the score. If I rolled all the way through on the choke I would roll over my back and they could call the match for Fernandez. That is, if the referee failed to recognize I was countering him by transitioning to newaza. I took the more conservative stance. I passed up on the choke and tried to fight out of the throw. My attempt to fight was fruitless as the referee called a small score the moment we landed. I attacked the rest of the match and kept going after him, but I couldn’t catch him. I would go 0–2 at this key tournament.

I walked off the mat was ready to cry. I knew I had another opportunity in a few weeks, but this felt crushing. Peter pulled me aside and said to me that while it was still a loss, I looked much better and had definitely shown up in the second match.

The next day was Peters turn to fight. He started off well winning his early matches. Then in the quarter finals he hit a wall. A tough player from Rhode Island who he had beaten many times before was simply better than him in the moment. Peter looked flat and the Rhode Island player threw him several times before the match was over. Peter dropped into the losers bracket where he lost to a bitter rival from Florida. We talked and I said what I could to try to make him feel better. Neither of us felt great about the weekend but we managed to convince each other there was still one more big tournament of the season.

Coach Carrie had some choice words for us but ultimately in that moment we were both able to dust ourselves off to an extent. We finished out the day watching what was all together a good series of matches to watch. The finals of Peters weight class had a highly anticipated matchup between two fighters who had both placed at the world championships. The match was fantastic to watch. We grabbed some food and went back to the hotel room shortly after.

Just as I was getting settled I got a text message. We were all to go to Big Jims hotel room. I knew that Peter and I had both underperformed, and that our heavyweight had a serious upset, but all together I thought the team had done ok. Still Big Jim was going to give us some tough words in our debriefing and I expected this. I didn’t realize just tough those words would be.

The summary of the lecture was this:

Your families are putting their hard earned money forward so that you could go to the Olympics. With the way most of you competed, you should know that isn’t going to happen. Either pull yourself together or quit.

I am writing this almost ten years later but I still remember the sensation of my heart sinking passed my feet.

Peter and I went back to our hotel room. We were both silent. I was sitting at the desk staring up my computer and he was on his bed. I think I started first. I felt tears starting to well up in my eyes. Soon we were both crying. What Big Jim had said was cutting, and could very well be true. Shortly after Peter went to spend time with his girlfriend. I just stared at my computer screen.

I remembered how Big Jim wanted me to lift more. To spend more time becoming stronger and how I didn’t feel like I was spending enough time in the gym. I put on my shorts and t-shirt, found the hotel gym and started lifting with what few machines they had. No one was there and I kept fighting back tears.

The next day a plan began to come together in my head. I needed to make a major change. I needed to do something drastic if I was going to make this Olympic team. I began to write an email to Jimmy, asking for a meeting. I was going to ask to go to Japan.

Names have been changed.