Former Wasps Feature at Kazan Universiade

 At the beginning of the summer, from 6th-17th July, rugby sevens was included for the first time in the 27th Summer Universiade, which is less cryptically known as the World Student Games. Russia’s ‘sports capital’ Kazan, which is about 800km east of Moscow, hosted the Games. Here in the UK, we had very little press coverage of the games, as our attention this summer was focused on the Lions, Wimbledon and, of course, the Ashes.

According to a report by BUCS (British Universities & Colleges Sport) last October, it was, astonishingly, more difficult to win a medal at the Universiade than the Commonwealth Games. Despite this, many teams still turned up with actual students (amongst them Olympic medallists), while Russia notably brought their strongest line ups.

At the start of the four day competition, I caught up with GB assistant coach, Nick Wakely, before the start of the tournament to find out how he hoped they would fare. “We’ve come here to win, that’s it,” he told me. “It does not matter who we are up against; France, South Africa, even Russia”. In the end, having lost to France in the semi-finals, the British team beat South Africa to the bronze medal, which, given they won at the World University Championships last year, was only a consolation prize. The Russian side eased past France in the final to take the gold meal. Not a country normally associated with top-class rugby, the Russian sevens side was considerably stronger to the fact that it was same squad that had competed at the World Cup in Moscow earlier this year.

Among the Russian players, who are all professionals in the Russian first division, was ex-London Wasp No Victor Gresev, who trained and played with us in the 2011-2012 season, following an outstanding run of performances at the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand. Gresev, as some of us may remember, was awarded Man of the Match against Australia and Italy. Given that Russia lost both these matches, the fact that he received this accolade was one of the reasons that he caught Dai Young’s eye. “It was a fantastic event and we will try our very best to qualify for the World Cup in London, it would be great,” he said.

Despite his potential, Gresev never made a real impact on the Wasps squad. In a season where we stayed up by the skin of our teeth, Victor was extremely positive about his season in London, which he commented on, “I was training with a very good team, I think I was lucky; it was a great experience for me.” Known for his powerful play from the back of the scrum, the Russian was playing mostly on the wing for the sevens side and talked about on the switch from 15-a-side, “They are slightly different games, but the lads have trained together now for quite some time and we’ve got used to the different style”.

Gresev, however, was not the only ex-Wasp at the Games. Lining up at hooker for GB was Mark Odejobi, who was with Wasps from 2006 to 2010, large portions of which he spent on loan at Henley and London Welsh. He is now playing at flanker for Division 1 side Esher and studying at Brunel University [formerly aka Borough Road, and the source of many of our class of 2003--ed.]. Mark and Victor, unfortunately for Wasps fans, never came head to head, as GB and Russia ended up on different sides of the draw.

The Universiade was not entirely without controversy, as the Russian team won a total of 155 gold medals compare to second place China on 26. It was, frankly, quite clear that many of them were not legitimate students. I was working for an official publication of the Universiade, and so was not open to publish any form of criticism. This did not, however, stop me probing into the academic background of some of the Russian athletes. Posing the question of what exactly he studied, Gresev, after seeking clarification from me, simply replied that he was studying in the ‘sporting institute’.  Putting academic credentials aside (I have no proof for a witch-hunt anyway), I was very pleased to see how open and friendly all the sportsmen I spoke to were, Gresev included. I even put aside a few minutes to stop being a journalist and, as a fan, have a few photos with the players.

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Toby has a blog at tobyfisher.wordpress.com