maligned

Summary of the morning: Kilty & Welker win their way back into bronze matches later today, joining Maroulis, who wrestles for gold. Taylor eliminated Nwachukwu, Glaude, Blades all fall in the quarters and hope for the best in the semis from the girls that beat them.

In the last 4 global tournaments, we are 11-0 at 65kg against everyone not named Rahman Amouzad. Yianni silver to Amouzad, Lee 3-0 then falls to Amouzad in the quarters, Zain falls to Amouzad then defaults, Woods bronze from Amouzad's bracket If you're undefeated other than 4 losses to the best guy in the world, aren't you actually very good??

Definitely. We were spoiled by the JB/DT/Cox/Snyder generation. Getting two first-time gold medalists, three first-time medalists, and two fifths that were ultra close to being first-time medalists--feels incredibly encouraging that we're in a good spot going forward.

Wow. 3 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze compared to 1 silver, 4 bronze in global events last year. Very much headed back in the right direction.

I'm inclined to think he was most likely less focused in training and generally less prepared having already climbed to the top of every mountain he'd hoped to scale. I'd guess we'll see unbeatable Taz sometime again in the future.

This was big. Bullen from Norway may have been the favorite in the bracket.

WOW!! That's amazing! Two wins from a throwback world title on the 10th anniversary of her first.

Men's freestyle are locked into 2nd place with Woods' performance this morning. Iran are on 140, we're at 124, and Japan are at 106. All 3 nations have 2 guys going for medals today and will earn 5 more points for each win.

I think Woods should be favored, but Biabani is an Iranian background former world junior champ who wrestled well yesterday. He kept things with Amouzad much tighter than Real did; and he got a nice win over Biliichuk, who won the mini bracket with beasts Naim, Rahimzada, and Guseinov. That said, if Real can keep his nerve and wrestle smart, he can definitely get the win.

2 golds & 2 silver OR 3 golds & 1 silver this year (Woods medal is a huge ask tomorrow)... ...compared to 1 silver and 4 bronze in the two global events last year. Add in the two fifths and it seems like a step back in the right direction.

Ha..others beat me to it...all the incoming comments are blocked by ads. So annoying.

I wonder if Kougioumtsidis goes up to 86 now that he's got his title? He looks so physical at 79 and struggled at 74 in the olympic year. If I were in his camp, I'd want him to push all his chips into the 86kg pot now.

Their first match was 2.5 years ago when Azarpira was 21. In their second match a year and a half ago, Snyder was up 3-0. After that, Azarpira went on to outscore Snyder 10-1 over their next 8 minutes of wrestling. Azarpira's loss to Zahid 2 years ago at age 21 was when he was sucked down to 92kg for the first time in numerous seasons. The only guy Azarpira would not be favored against is Taz--who he just beat. I like Kyle's chances, but he's not the favorite.

Are they at 4 or 4:30 local time? Schedule says 4:30.

You guys haven't typically had many "exports" like the US and Russia. How is Biabani viewed by fans? Do top guys like Masoumi consider moving abroad to compete and break through internationally?

Wow...thanks for posting

True. I wrongly took it to mean pre-quarters.

Biabani, the Iranian background Canadian, gets a rare semis appearance for them at 65kg. Bilichuk takes out Naim and Guseinov 9-8 and 14-11 in wild ones while Biabani faces much easier comp the first two rounds. He capitalizes by taking out the most likely exhausted Bilichuk, 5-2, in the quarters. McKenna teched him at Pan-Ams.

Ok, his scores weren't pre-quarters. They were partway through quarters. Now they're post-quarters. I have the same points as him now.

Yes, I'm doing the same. US 57kg : 8th place = 6 61kg: 5th place = 10 65kg: nothing yet 70kg: 0 74kg: at least 5th = 10 79kg: at least 2nd = 20 86kg: 1st = 25 92kg: at least 2nd = 20 97kg: nothing yet 125kg: 0 TOTAL = 91

I don't know where he's getting his extra points. Iran had a published 60 from the 4 weights that finished last night. And they have 3 wrestling for bronze and nothing else (3 x 10). That's 90. We had a published 35 from the 4 finals weights last night and have 2 gold finalists and a bronze finalist (20 x 2 + 10 = 50). That's 85 for us. Plus Lee is 7th or 8th, which is another 6 or 8 points. That's 93 or 91. Not sure what else he's adding in.

They add nothing on anything published by the UWW until all finals matches have been wrestled. The totals I just put up include all of the points from the 4 weights that finished yesterday PLUS the points earned to this point by the gold and bronze finalists (20 and 10, respectively, as you said). You're right, then, that any match win tonight adds only 5 more points to the totals I wrote up. A note, though: I just did some napkin math and Lee looks like he's got 7th or 8th. So the US actually have 6 or 8 more points and lead Iran heading into tonight.

Team points heading into today's four finals with 10 points added to each bronze medal finalist and 20 points added to each gold medal finalist (no points calculated in for 7th to 10th places for today's finals weights): Iran 90 US 85 Azerbaijan 78 Japan 65

Question: Would Sea-bass now, or Micic circa 2023 have gotten as good as they have if they had competed for the US? Both of them seem to have gotten more and more savvy with the dozens of high-level international matches they've gotten while they wrestle free and clear as their nation's #1. Is RBY headed that way too?

All strong points. I hope you're right.