Mark Hall gets his hand raised after a victory at the Junior World Championships (Photo/Richard Immel)TAMPERE, Finland -- Team USA started the Junior World Championships in Tampere, Finland, with a bang.
Two Americans, Mark Hall (74 kilograms) and Mitchell McKee (60kg), advanced to tonight's finals. Another, Kollin Moore (96 kilograms), will wrestle for a bronze medal. Team USA won its first seven matches on Tuesday.
Hall, a returning Junior world champion, won four matches in the first session on Tuesday -- capped off by a 10-3 win in the semifinals over Turkey's Muhammet Kucukyildirim -- to punch his ticket to tonight's finals at 74 kilograms.
Hall's run to the finals included a 6-2 quarterfinal win over past Cadet silver medalist Radik Valiev of Russia, as well as a dominant 10-0 victory in the semifinals over Asian champion Mohammad Mottaghinia of Iran.
He will meet Isa Shapiev of Uzbekistan for the gold tonight. Shapiev has been dominant throughout the competition, picking up a fall, technical fall and 8-1 semifinal victory over Yajuro Yamasaki of Japan.
Mitchell McKee (Photo/Richard Immel)McKee put together an impressive string of victories to reach the finals at 60 kilograms. He won high-scoring thrillers in both the quarterfinals and the semifinals.
After edging Turkey's Utku Dogan 11-9 in the quarterfinals, McKee came from behind to beat Ravinder Ravinder of India 16-14 in the semifinals. Ravinder led 8-2 at the break, but McKee battled back in the second period and eventually took a 14-10 lead. Ravinder scored a takedown to cut the deficit to two. He then was awarded four points for a throw, which was challenged and overturned. McKee held on for the two-point victory, and will now face Abdula Akhmedov of Russia.
Kollin Moore (Photo/Richard Immel)Moore won his first two matches to reach the semifinals. He opened with a 10-5 win over Iran's Danyal Shariatinia, scoring three takedowns in the final two minutes of the match. In the quarterfinals, Moore won by technical fall over Alisher Yergali (Kazakhstan) 10-0. His run in the championship bracket came to a hault in the semifinals when he lost by technical fall to Givi Matcharashvili (Georgia).
Malik Heinselman won his first match at 50 kilograms, beating European bronze medalist Horst Lehr of Germany 5-4. He dropped his second match to Rakhat Kalzhan of Kazakhstan 8-2, and was eliminated when Kalzhan fell in the semifinals to Karen Zurabyan of Armenia.
Tonight's final round is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. local time, 11:30 a.m. ET.
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