President Lalovic's Opening Address to the 2014 FILA Men's Freestyle World Cup

Hello Friends of Wrestling:

I am Nenad Lalovic, President of FILA, the international federation of wrestling.

Welcome to The LA Forum and the FILA World Cup.

For the next two days you will see finest teams in the world and the finest wrestlers in the world, battling for the championship in freestyle wrestling.

Today is a historic time for our sport. We start our run to the Olympic Games as a new sport with a new attitude.

You can enjoy all the action with us. Our sport is strong and our athletes are our ambassadors to the world for our strength but they are also ambassadors for friendship. Fierce enemies on the mat always become best friends off of the mat.

Thanks to the organizers, USA Wrestling and Beat the Streets-LA for their hard work to bring this event to LA. I would also like to welcome the teams, officials, coaches and referees to this World Cup.

I wish I could be there. It is a beautiful city.

But I wish for you to enjoy this moment and this tremendous sport of wrestling. We have her in LA this weekend representatives of ten nations, the ten best freestyle nations in the world.

We have the opportunity altogether to send a strong message to the world that we the athletes are always friends and that we don’t take into consideration any policies. We have teams from Iran, USA, Russia, Ukraine and the others.

From this place, The Forum, we send the world a message that friendship is always possible.

Thank You.