denger

Her career has been fun to follow. Such grit in overcoming past losses. Such poise in her composure these games. Such creativity in overcoming past vulnerabilities by capitalizing on her unique assets. And her joy! She's an incredible role model and deserves her hard-fought success!

I agree with you, just to expand on what you already said: Coon's bad luck was where unseeded Lopez landed. He had the most improbable quarter of his bracket, and after seeing that Lopez was still in top form, it'd be fair to say that Coon had the worst draw of the tournament. I don't think we can complain about any of the Greco guys, otherwise. It's hard to even complain about Coon - none of the greco guys were sniffing a seed. Sarah earned her 6th seed. And she earned hard-fought wins over the 3rd and 2nd seeds, avenging a couple tough losses to the Mongolian. I like her chances to win Gold! Dom drew a shitty day one, but yeah, that could have been worse. Also, Amit WAS the misfortune of everyone else in her bracket - especially for the number one seed! Damn, she'd gone out and earned that top seed only to draw Amit first round. It's not as mean as Lopez showing up and toppling the Iranian, but a similar situation of what could have been the Gold Medal Match in the qualification rounds.

Biles set new standards in the sport. She set new expectations for what greatness is and how the judges sort it. I don't know who the other "woman who had more golds..." was, but I'll go ahead and assume she also set new standards in her time. In discussions about goats, I think the comparison to who showed up to what kind of competition is paramount. For all I know, Biles would have been disqualified in the time of the earlier Great...Or, it's a safer assumption to guess that the judges wouldn't have known what to do with that information. I can't make an argument for who, but I hope you see my point.

Lopez is a very polite and gentle monster. Even though nobody in the world has threatened his greatness since 2015, he chooses to only come out when the stakes are highest, and when he does come out he chooses to only gut wrench another 300lb world class athlete once.

They'll put 'em both down in the snoozers, where nobody seems close to scoring. I wish it were more rare. I know that I'm ignorant on Greco. A really weird inference I've made is such snoozefests: They'll penalize the favored guy first, so he'll have the best chance at scoring last. I freaking hate it! I could deduce that the 'favored' wrestler in this scenario is showing the judges what they need to see in order to secure the second passivity penalty, but I also hate that as a competitive strategy in a sport called wrestling.

I hadn't been spladled for 30 years. This was soooooo much more dignified than last time!

We are in full agreement! So many of these have been unwarranted. Why stop everything to reexamine how poorly you just lost, only to reinforce that you lost poorly?

I learned yesterday that the gymnasts pay $300 for a challenge...and that used to be cash, which resulted in coaches approaching the judges and hurling cash at them in protest. Not as dramatic as our Mongolian friends, but still.

I don't put too much stock into Hildebrandt's losses in 2019. Well, not as much as the fact that Vinesh beat Suzaki today. Vinesh didn't look unbeatable in her first two matches, though.

NBC announcer just said Lopez would be the first man to win gold in 5 consecutive Olympics in the same event. He also said that India is the second most populated county in the world, so I'm not sure what he knows.

Still has 7.666 matches ahead of her. I hope she's up by 3:00

Ohhhhh man! I can't wait for that final tomorrow!

Don't see a lot of those at international wrestling events!

Who's the guy in the corner for Vinesh? Seems to be speaking English.

I'm not interested in stealing your thunder, @D3 for LU! Thanks for getting up early and weighing in I'm just excited for Dom Parrish. The whole women's team, tbh. I might regret framing it this way...but a couple Japanese women faltering opens the door for team USA to do something nobody thought they'd do any time soon, and I'd really like for the fastest growing sport in the USA to have something affirming to celebrate.

Looking at the Wikipedia list of multiple-time gold medalists, a handful of athletes managed to win Olympic medals over a span of 20+ years in sports like equestrian, fencing, archery, and canoeing. No wrestlers, obviously.

Brackets are out. Both Dom Parrish (53) and Jacobson (87) have tough goes in the first round. Dom drew 3rd seed Fujinami of Japan, whose list of accomplishments on UWW include a slew of all-gold medals and wins by tech going back to Cadets in 2018. Jacobson drew the 7th seed Serbian, Komarov: Reigning European Champ and U23 World Champ in 2021. Of course, there is no easy draw at the olympics...And the first two Japanese women surprised us.

Good Gawd. Holding my nose 'round here again.

Her joy is captivating - makes it easy to be a fan! She's a rare matchup for most of the field, absorbing their power with all that length. There's always risk in attacking her, but everyone's strategy is to do just that and not give her time for offense. To answer @russelscout, yeah, kinda...I'd say the field rarely gives Hildebrandt time to get to her offense because nobody in the world wants to end up under her - not on her terms anyway. I also like her parterre counter-offense that we saw in the quarters: Rather than waiting it out defensively, she's looking for an opportunity down there. The Mongolian is also a rare matchup in the weight class, and couldn't be a more opposite package from Sarah's length. I didn't see the ranking series win for Hildebrandt, but I can imagine a counter ending in a signature leg lace.

Hildebrandt teched her at a ranking series event last July, but yeah, 0-2 at Worlds in 22 & 23. Dolgorjav has a bunch of losses to Feng from China, who Sarah just beat in the 1/4s. It's a tough style matchup for Hildebrandt. Last year I remember thinking, "Damn...Spaghetti has no answer for Meatball today"

It looked Stadnik had been awarded 4 for a counter off a Mongolian shot - Stadnik had stepped over the back of her opponent, which turned her some but not past 90. Stadnik was frustrated AF after the match.

I dunno, avoiding spoilers during the Olympics by clicking on an international wrestling forum is about as effective as avoiding arm ties with Amit Elor by choosing to wrestle against Amit Elor.

I suspected the PRK intentions in the reply after the match. Maybe she just wanted to get away from Nisha's underhook... The PRK strategy to try and go over-under ties kept Elor at bay for about 30 seconds. I enjoyed watching Amit change that strategy, though, "How 'bout I take your underhook hand out of my armpit and put it on your hip?...Great, now you can either walk out of bounds or get under me...Oh, by the way, this leg lace is gonna hurt. Let's go for a roll".

DIdn't see that coming! Looking forward to that bottom half semi.

I guess I understand why someone who clearly lost wants judges to look for something...but you lost, bud. Makes me appreciate the French accent on "Challenge LOST!"