Pan-Am Olympic Qualifier 2/28 - 3/1

[cowcards]

Brackets are out. 

Zane - CRC/GUA in quarters then CRUZ or ECU in semis. Great draw. 
Lee - Gomez then McNeil or Kramer. Quarters is the big match here. Should still qualify though. 
Dom - CHI then CUB/CAN. CAN is a tough match (she has beaten Dom and Winchester but lost to Augello). 
Miracle - CUB then VEN. VEN is the tough one. 
Elor - Cub then COL. Great Draw.
Ildar - CUB then DOM. Cuba is the big one. Win that and qualify. 
Sancho - ARG/PUR then CHO. Great draw. 
Bey - ARG then COL. Toughest draw he could get probably.
Woods - HON then CUB. Toughest draw possible.
Vera - PAN then VEN. Should qualify. 
Schultz - Round Robin with BRA and CAN. Better draw than CHI. BRA still a tough beat. 

Edited February 27 by cowcards

[mspart]

Best of luck to all!

mspart

[ionel]

On 2/25/2024 at 11:14 PM, ILLINIWrestlingBlog said:

He didn't stay on his back like some other fellows. I asked him about it in a recent interview, and he said that he was afraid that a ref in a hostile gym would call a pinfall against him, so he moved with alacrity. 

You've been hanging out with Wkn haven't you?    I've talked to Jesse and I can not imagine the word "pinfall" ever coming out of his mouth.  

[bnwtwg]

It's not that I don't want the US to qualify at 65, but if Air Gomez takes flight then the mental gymnastics surrounding "well we really already qualified 2 Americans anyways" is going to be in full expat effect. It will be even more fun if Gomez beats Lee then loses to McNeil. I'm here for the chaos.

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

Here's an idea for USA Wrestling and UWW: Instead of having draws the day before wrestling starts, have the draws at least a week before the event. I believe that this makes sense and is easily do-able. They have ranking points, so they know who should receive which seed. The other wrestlers have entered and can be randomly drawn. 

Why do it like the Soccer World Cup? 

Because people can start talking about the matchups. People can get excited. Whole days that were empty of wrestling talk could be filled with it five days and four days before the tournament. Anticipation. 

Mostly, though, it would have saved me from posting my most embarrassing preview on The ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond Plus. I went ahead and previewed three of Zane Richards' chief competitors at the Pan Am Olympic Games qualifier.

Zane will not wrestle any of them. 

First, there's the Cuban. It turns out Cuba didn't even enter a wrestler at the weight! Second, there's the apparent seeding changes. It looked like Zane would be seeded first and the Venezuelan fourth or be unseeded. Instead, the Venezuelan got the first seed, and Zane got the second. They will not wrestle. 

Finally, there's RBY. Of course, whether he would face Zane was up to the draw, but if the draw happened a week ago, he would not have been added to the preview. 

So, what I'm saying is that it would be good for wrestling if UWW went to week-before draws. Even more importantly, it would make me look less stupid. 

As a final note, RBY fans can check out the preview to read about the Venezuelan, Pedro Mejias, who is standing in the NLWC kid's way. Bravo Young will need to stay away from the #1 seed's strength, which is short offense wrestling. RBY is very good at that. But if he is too slow to convert a single, Mejias will chest lock him around like RBY is his pillow, and he's in a big pillow fight. 

[cowcards]

Schultz beats BRA! Has MEX or VEN in the semis to qualify. 

[cowcards]

Woods with the pin over HON. Has CUB in the semis to qualify.

Bey will have ARG in the quarters. Good thing is he is going to be tired. He put a lot of effort into his 5-0 win over Mexico. 

[cowcards]

Vera with the tech. Has the VEN he beat last week to qualify. 

Schultz will have VEN to qualify. 

Really like both their chances there. 

[bnwtwg]

@ILLINIWrestlingBlog I'm out of the loop. Why is Vera at Pan Ams when Braunagel is the current world team rep?

[cowcards]

2 minutes ago, bnwtwg said:

@ILLINIWrestlingBlog I'm out of the loop. Why is Vera at Pan Ams when Braunagel is the current world team rep?

Vera is wrestling 97. Woods is at 87. 

[cowcards]

Sancho into the semis where he has CHI who he beat last week. Great chance to qualify. 

[bnwtwg]

15 minutes ago, cowcards said:

Vera is wrestling 97. Woods is at 87. 

Someone is paying more attention to greco than I am

[cowcards]

Bey into the semis against COL who he lost to this weekend. 

[cowcards]

Hafizov loses to CUB and is eliminated. 

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

Kamal Bey is one match away from qualifying the weight for the Olympics. He had to go through a past World Champion and Olympic Silver from Argentina (via Armenia). Here's some great action from that match, which was challenged by Argentina and disallowed, apparently for a leg foul. I call bull**** on that, but you know that past Senior World Champs get the benefit of the doubt.

Bey won 4-2, even without this beautiful throw:

 

 

[MPhillips]

1 minute ago, ILLINIWrestlingBlog said:

Bey won 4-2

Huge win for Bey.

[cowcards]

Updated predictions in order of qualifying likelihood:
Schultz, Vera, Sancho, Bey will all qualify. 

Woods won't.  

[CHROMEBIRD]

4 hours ago, ILLINIWrestlingBlog said:

Here's an idea for USA Wrestling and UWW: Instead of having draws the day before wrestling starts, have the draws at least a week before the event. I believe that this makes sense and is easily do-able. They have ranking points, so they know who should receive which seed. The other wrestlers have entered and can be randomly drawn. 

Why do it like the Soccer World Cup? 

Because people can start talking about the matchups. People can get excited. Whole days that were empty of wrestling talk could be filled with it five days and four days before the tournament. Anticipation. 

Mostly, though, it would have saved me from posting my most embarrassing preview on The ILLINI Wrestling Blog and Forum and Beyond Plus. I went ahead and previewed three of Zane Richards' chief competitors at the Pan Am Olympic Games qualifier.

Zane will not wrestle any of them. 

First, there's the Cuban. It turns out Cuba didn't even enter a wrestler at the weight! Second, there's the apparent seeding changes. It looked like Zane would be seeded first and the Venezuelan fourth or be unseeded. Instead, the Venezuelan got the first seed, and Zane got the second. They will not wrestle. 

Finally, there's RBY. Of course, whether he would face Zane was up to the draw, but if the draw happened a week ago, he would not have been added to the preview. 

So, what I'm saying is that it would be good for wrestling if UWW went to week-before draws. Even more importantly, it would make me look less stupid. 

As a final note, RBY fans can check out the preview to read about the Venezuelan, Pedro Mejias, who is standing in the NLWC kid's way. Bravo Young will need to stay away from the #1 seed's strength, which is short offense wrestling. RBY is very good at that. But if he is too slow to convert a single, Mejias will chest lock him around like RBY is his pillow, and he's in a big pillow fight. 

Sometimes, part of the fun is the speculation (or blog posts!) about the hypothetical matchups. But I'm on board with this because knowing the draws in advance would facilitate sports betting and sports betting would draw more fans to the sport. The athletes and their coaches would also be able to gameplan AND do some trash talking at each other in the leadup to the tournament!

A lot of things could go wrong, though. Wrestler doesn't make weight, fails medical exam, gets a last minute injury, doesn't make the trip. But still!

[bnwtwg]

54 minutes ago, CHROMEBIRD said:

A lot of things could go wrong, though. Wrestler doesn't make weight, fails medical exam, gets a last minute injury, doesn't make the trip. But still!

Gets run over by Kevin Jackson's Buick...

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

1 hour ago, CHROMEBIRD said:

Sometimes, part of the fun is the speculation (or blog posts!) about the hypothetical matchups. But I'm on board with this because knowing the draws in advance would facilitate sports betting and sports betting would draw more fans to the sport. The athletes and their coaches would also be able to gameplan AND do some trash talking at each other in the leadup to the tournament!

A lot of things could go wrong, though. Wrestler doesn't make weight, fails medical exam, gets a last minute injury, doesn't make the trip. But still!

I hadn't thought about sports betting. Good point! 

As for the injuries, fails at medical checks and weigh-ins, that is easily resolved with a forfeit. Those things can happen with the current structure. 

[Tripnsweep]

Wow Sancho gets pinned while trying a gut. Challenges call, loses challenge. Chile makes the Olympics. 

Edited February 28 by Tripnsweep

[cowcards]

Sancho gets pinned. No qualification at 67.

[Tripnsweep]

Ecuador qualifies on the other side at 67. Cuba vs Brazil up now at 77. 

[cowcards]

And Bey gets beat. No qualification at 77.

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

As good as Kamal wrestled in the first period, he wrestled that much ungood in the second. Dang. That Colombian looked like an 87 kg wrestler.