Jesse Thielke (Mark Lundy, LutteLens.com)Thielke's tournament started with a technical fall shutout victory, 8-0, over Olympic medalist Peter Modos. He followed that up with a 13-6 win over another Olympic medalist, Revaz Lashkhi of Georgia, 13-6. In the quarterfinals Thielke faced Frunze Harutyunyan of Sweden. Thielke used a throw to go up 2-0, but Harutyunyan responded with two points of his own to make the score 2-2 at the break. Harutyunyan then took a 4-2 lead in the second period before Thielke reversed the action and put the Swede on his back and secured the fall.
In the semifinals -- and the match to qualify for the Olympic Games -- Thielke faced 2012 World University champion Donior Islamov of Moldova. The first period saw 17 points put on the scoreboard, which included two four-point throws from Islamov, but Thielke led 9-8 at the break. In the second period Thielke used a body lock to go up 13-8, and then put the match away with a takedown and turn to earn the 17-8 technical fall.
With his Olympic spot already secured, Thielke faced six-time World champion and Olympic champion Hamid Soryan of Iran in the gold-medal match. Soryan proved to be too much for Thielke on Friday, earning an 8-0 technical fall.
Two other American Greco-Roman wrestlers, RaVaughn Perkins (66 kilos) and Joe Rau (98), competed on Friday but fell short of qualifying for the Olympic Games.
Perkins opened with an 11-2 technical fall victory over Pan Zheng of China. Zheng led 2-0 after the opening period, but Perkins came back strong in the second period, scoring with multiple gut wrenches in a row to earn the technical fall.
In his second match Perkins came from behind to defeat Vladimiros Matias of Greece 9-4 to reach the quarterfinals. His Olympic dream was shattered in the semifinals when he was edged 4-3 by Ruslan Tsarev of Kyrgyzstan. Perkins was then placed in repechage for a chance at a bronze medal, where he fell 8-0 to Armen Vardanyan of Ukraine.
Rau dominated Narek Setaghyan of Spain 9-0 in his first match. He dropped his second match to Kevin Mejia of Honduras 8-0.
U.S. women's freestyle wrestlers Kelsey Campbell (58 kilos) and Tamyra Mensah (69 kilos) will attempt to qualify for the Olympic Games on Saturday in Turkey.
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