2024 Olympic Day Six Bracket Breakdown

A few hours ago, brackets dropped for day six of the wrestling competition at the 2024 Olympic Games (For the full bracket, look here). Like the American wrestlers who started their tournaments this morning, tomorrow’s crop of wrestlers face some imposing opponents right off the bat. Here are the Americans wrestling on Saturday, along with background information on their first opponent and a potential path to the finals. Since the gold medal matches are wrestled on the following day, we’ll deal with that half of the bracket when relevant. 65 kg Zane Retherford vs Rahman Amouzad (Iran) Since Zain Retherford comes into the tournament unseeded, he got drawn in and has the second seed Rahman Amouzad right off the bat. In a weight with nine past world/Olympic medalists, there were to be some first-round matches like this one. American fans have seen Amouzad against US wrestlers a couple times recently. He defeated Nick Lee in the world quarterfinals last year and, in 2022, he downed Yianni Diakomihalis in the gold medal match. Amouzad is still very young (22 years old). In the year before beating Yianni, Amouzad won a U20 world title, to go along with two at the U17 level. After the 2023 World Championships, Amouzad won the Asian Games. In 2024, he won a gold medal at the 2024 Asian Championships and was a finalist at the Zagreb Open. Should Retherford get by Amouzad, he’d likely face Islam Dudaev (Albania). Though Dudaev won the European Championship this year, he still was unable to qualify through the European qualifier and needed to go to the Last Chance Qualifier to get it done. Also on the bottom half of the bracket is Iszmail Musakaev (Hungary)/Ernazar Akmataliev (Kyrgyzstan) and Austin Gomez (Mexico)/Haji Aliyev (Azerbaijan). Most notable of the bunch is returning world champion, Musakaev; however, any of the four could likely advance. Other notable American collegiate athletes in the bracket are Gomez and Sebastian Rivera (Puerto Rico). Gomez has three-time world champion and two-time Olympic medalist, Aliyev, in the first round. Rivera has a more manageable matchup with Georgii Okorokov (Australia). 97 kg Kyle Snyder vs. Awusayiman Habila (China) Kyle Snyder’s third Olympic tournament will start with a matchup versus China’s Awusayiman Habila. Habila will be making his Olympic debut and has entered the World Championships twice, but has never been close to a medal. Habila qualified for Paris through the final wrestle-off at the Last Chance Qualifier. The quarterfinals could feature either Arturo Silot Torres (Cuba) or Erik Thiele (Germany). Snyder has met and beaten Silot Torres twice within the last year (14-4, 10-5). Thiele is in his first Olympic Games, but has competed at the World Championships four times. In the most recent appearances, Thiele finished top-ten in the world. The semifinals are where things start to get really, real for Snyder. Incredibly enough, the two best wrestlers in the bracket, not named Snyder, meet each other in the opening round. They are Akhmed Tazhudinov (Bahrain) and Amirali Azarpira (Iran). Both are responsible for Snyder’s most recent losses. Tazhudinov shocked Snyder at the 2023 World Championships on his way to a shocking world title. Azarpira wrestled in the World Championships last year at 92 kg, but moved up to 97 kg this year and defeated Snyder in the finals of the Zagreb Open. 76 kg women’s freestyle Kennedy Blades vs. Catalina Axente (Romania) Normally, seeing a 20-year-old first-time Olympian draw the fourth seed might give you some thoughts of a bad draw, but I don’t think that’s the case here. Catalina Axente is also a first-time Olympian who finished fifth in the world last year. Axente lost in the Olympic wrestle-off match at the 2023 World Championships, didn’t medal at the European Championships, and lost in the semifinals at the European Olympic Qualifier. She needed to win at the Last Chance Qualifier to punch her ticket to Paris. Should Blades defeat Axente she would have the winner of Yuliana Yaneva (Bulgaria) and Milaimys Marin Potrille (Cuba). Yaneva was fifth at the World Championships in 2022 and was a two-time age group world medalist. Marin Potrille was also fifth at Worlds, though at last year’s tournament. She was a world champion at the U20 and U23 levels back in 2019. After World’s in 2023, Marin Potrille claimed a gold medal at the Pan-American Games. The most likely semifinalist on Blades’ half of the bracket is top-seeded Aiperi Medet Kyzy (Kyrgyzstan). Medet Kyzy is a two-time world medalist who is fresh off a silver medal performance at the 2023 World Championships. This will be her second Olympic Games - in 2020 Medet Kyzy lost in a bronze medal match. In 2024, Medet Kyzy has been excellent with gold medals at the Asian Championships and the Zagreb Open Ranking Series event.

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2024 Olympic Day Six Bracket Breakdown

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