What happened to Lee?

[mspart]

He got beat bad.   Was he hurt?   This is just really odd.   I have not seen a topic on this so I thought I would start one.   Please excuse if this has been discussed somewhere else.   If so, point me to it or just say what happened.   It would be weird for him to meet a match  so much better than him like that, it seems that something must have been wrong. 

mspart

[Lucho]

10 minutes ago, mspart said:

He got beat bad.   Was he hurt?   This is just really odd.   I have not seen a topic on this so I thought I would start one.   Please excuse if this has been discussed somewhere else.   If so, point me to it or just say what happened.   It would be weird for him to meet a match  so much better than him like that, it seems that something must have been wrong. 

mspart

I think he just got out wrestled by Harutyunyan. I'm just as shocked as you tbh. I thought him and Zare were guaranteed gold medals but it looks like you can't bet on light weights at all. Harutyunyan is a super tricky wrestler so its not that surprising he won its just that I would've thought the American strength and conditioning would have kept it a lot closer. Maybe Lee needs to go train at PSU or OSU as Iowa's ability to consistently produce international hammers has diminished in the modern era. 

[boconnell]

44 minutes ago, mspart said:

He got beat bad.   Was he hurt?   This is just really odd.   I have not seen a topic on this so I thought I would start one.   Please excuse if this has been discussed somewhere else.   If so, point me to it or just say what happened.   It would be weird for him to meet a match  so much better than him like that, it seems that something must have been wrong. 

mspart

He scored a few points and the other guy scored a lot of points.  

[MPhillips]

 

[mspart]

Thanks.   Sounds like no excuse except he got beat.   It does happen, but seems weird for Spencer Freekin Lee.   Maybe he can lose the Freekin middle name  now.  

mspart

[wrestlingshoe]

I think he puts too much pressure on himself. He looked lackluster. His silver medal last year was a huge disappointment to him and nothing but gold would suffice this year. And the way the Brands look at winning, I'm sure it makes it even more difficult. 

 

[de4856]

No clue, but he didn’t look right, some people suggested that he just got out wrestled, but it looked like he just got manhandled to me. 
So I don’t know what happened, maybe a bad weight cut, maybe he overtrained and was just stale. I don’t have any insight or information about any specific health issues regarding Spencer but I have suspected for some time that there is something else going on with him besides his bad knees. 

[SocraTease]

No talk of injury, yes?  He dominated his first match, right?  Leading up to Worlds, he was solid at Final X and previous matches, correct?  He was coming off an Olympic Silver, and the finals there was relatively close, if I recall.

So consternation is warranted.  

Sometimes, there are just bad matchups.  Or one isn't mentally in the game against an opponent.  Or things start off poorly, and seem to go downhill.  Look at what happened to Simone Biles.  She just lost it for a while.  Or the Japanese tennis player. Very elite baseball players sometimes can't buy a hit or get a throw to first.  Or, closer to home, Dake and Borroughs getting smashed  once ... at the Olympics (was it?). 

Who knows?  Maybe Lee will share something.  Maybe not. More importantly, I think, is how he responds the next few times out.  I bet most of us who have wrestled or competed in sports at a serious level have a head-scratching loss or two

[Eagle26]

8 hours ago, wrestlingshoe said:

I think he puts too much pressure on himself. He looked lackluster. His silver medal last year was a huge disappointment to him and nothing but gold would suffice this year. And the way the Brands look at winning, I'm sure it makes it even more difficult. 

 

That’s my take as well. You see Penn State and many other programs adopting the mindset of just “having fun and scoring points”. Iowa is still stuck on winning is everything. Even though PSU is super competitive and wants to win as bad as Iowa, the mindset they promote is much more freeing. It allows their guys to wrestle without all the pressure 

[oldschool]

42 minutes ago, Eagle26 said:

That’s my take as well. You see Penn State and many other programs adopting the mindset of just “having fun and scoring points”. Iowa is still stuck on winning is everything. Even though PSU is super competitive and wants to win as bad as Iowa, the mindset they promote is much more freeing. It allows their guys to wrestle without all the pressure 

couldn't agree more

[The Kid]

15 minutes ago, oldschool said:

couldn't agree more

lol.....do you really believe that nonsense propaganda?

[WrestlingRasta]

Margin of error at that level is razor thin, and simply a notch or two down in the mental part of the game can be the difference in a silver medal at the olympics and what we saw earlier this week.  At the beginning of the match I was already feeling like something was off with him, from a 'zoned in' standpoint.   Then there was one moment....if you go back and watch, Harutynuuan had just went up 2-1 and Lee kind of back out of bounds grounded.  On the way back to center the ref talked to Lee about it.....Lee was looking the ref dead in the eye like a kid being talked to by his father and nodded in acknowledgement.   May seem like a nothing burger, but it really stood out to me, you don't see that at this level.  These guys are laser focused and aren't typically paying much attention to what the ref is telling them, they are focused on the match and looking to gain whatever edge they can.  I literally said at the moment "oh he's in trouble, he's not all there".

I honestly believe that with that score and exchange with the ref, and already not 100% in it (mentally) Lee completely lost it.  And the rest of the match went the way it did......

[Eagle26]

25 minutes ago, The Kid said:

lol.....do you really believe that nonsense propaganda?

Please elaborate

[Eagle26]

To be clear, I’m not a Penn State fan. I believe Cael is a win at all costs guy just as much as Brands, Taylor, and just about every D1 coach. I don’t think Cael is on some moral high ground that he won’t do what it takes to win. But I think you have to respect that he’s not promoting that with his athletes. They are already ultra competitive. He’s getting them to buy into down playing the importance of winning to help them relax, perform better, and in turn, the winning comes. 

[The Kid]

54 minutes ago, Eagle26 said:

To be clear, I’m not a Penn State fan. I believe Cael is a win at all costs guy just as much as Brands, Taylor, and just about every D1 coach. I don’t think Cael is on some moral high ground that he won’t do what it takes to win. But I think you have to respect that he’s not promoting that with his athletes. They are already ultra competitive. He’s getting them to buy into down playing the importance of winning to help them relax, perform better, and in turn, the winning comes. 

It's easy to have fun when you have the #1 recruit at every weight.

How would he do at Clarion roster with the fun?