Bey Into Repechage at 2024 Olympic Games Qualifier

The World OG Qualifier, otherwise known as the “Last Chance Qualifier” got underway this morning from Istanbul, Turkey. The tournament serves as the last opportunity for wrestlers to qualify for the 2024 Olympic Games. Anyone who advances to the finals automatically earns an Olympic quota for their country. Repechage is conducted, as well, and the two bronze medalists at each weight class will square off for the final Olympic bid. 

Today, Greco-Roman was front and center. The American team needed to qualify each of the first three Greco weights, 60, 67, and 77 kg. The team went 1-3 on the day and none of them will advance to Paris via a finals appearance. 

Two of them have been eliminated, Dalton Roberts at 60 kg and Ellis Coleman at 67 kg. Roberts went 0-1 and Coleman was 1-1 and both of their opponents lost prior to the finals. The United States will not be represented at the Olympic Games at either weight class. 

The 2012 Olympian Coleman got the day started at 67 kg with a 1-1 victory over Aliaksandr Liavonchyk (AIN - Belarus). Both wrestlers earned their respective points via passivity. Coleman’s came in the second period when he had criteria on his side. A match later, he fell to Switzerland’s Andreas Vetsch, 8-1. Vetsch would go on to lose his next bout in the quarterfinals. 

After a day of competition, the only American Greco-Roman wrestler with Olympic hopes still alive is Kamal Bey at 77 kg. Bey was beaten, 8-0, by Sergei Kutuzov (AIN - Russia); however, Kutuzov continued to win all the way through the semifinals. 

Bey will drop into tomorrow’s repechage rounds. He’ll have Tsimur Berdyieu (AIN - Belarus), a two-time world fifth-place finisher and a bronze medalist in 2017 at the U23 tournament in Europe. He’ll need a total of four wins to earn qualification into the 2024 Olympic Games. 

Like Bey, Roberts dropped his opening match of the day, 11-6. He was down 7-0 in the second period; however, Roberts rallied in the final stanza to make his opponent, Viktor Petryk, sweat a bit. Perhaps too much as Petryk was pinned in his next bout, eliminating Roberts. 
 

American Results

60 kg

Round of 32: Viktor Petryk (Ukraine) over Dalton Roberts  11-6

67 kg

Round of 32: Ellis Coleman over Aliaksandr Liavonchyk (Belarus)  1-1

Round of 16: Andreas Vetsch (Switzerland) over Ellis Coleman  8-1
 

77 kg

Sergei Kutuzov (AIN - Russia) over Kamal Bey  8-0