GrandOlm

Team: Japan FS: A lot of there stars were out and they still easily grabbed third place. Iran GR: What a beatdown. Double or almost double the points of number 2? They can win two more golds tomorrow and sweep all the weights 82kg and north. Individuals FS: Han was a surprise gold. I'll throw Haru and Baran some bones for beating people beating a heavy favorite and getting an all time best result in your 30s. Individuals Greco: Lolua and Amoyan. Lolua won a field that included a rising prodigy and a dominant champion. Amoyan upset the olympic champ who made it to the finals. For non golds, I think Kyrl and Elias took the biggest scalps while medaling. I think the candidates for biggest under performers are a stronger bunch, but that's not what the thread is about.

I am talking about one specific commentator. I'm pretty sure he just reads the wrestlers wikipedia entry or some other notes that he gathered. You can tell he's reading off something and is not watching the match when he does it.

The only wrestler in the US with a reasonable chance to win a bronze or silver medal is Bey. And Bey would still need a favorable draw (to avoid someone like Akzhol) and to be wrestling his best to actually do it. The rest of them are not good enough. Some of them I think aren't athletically gifted enough and they maneuvered their way into greco "safe spaces" after rude wake up calls in their folk style journeys (somewhat big fish moving into a small pond). A couple are fine athletes but are thousands of hours behind in greco mat time compared to their competitors. I think I saw a Flo guy named Brey complaining about why the 55 kg rep couldn't do what the US teen freestylers did. It's clueless and he doesn't even understand why the FS wrestlers in the US do well. Why should Raney beat someone like Azizli? He hasn't put in anywhere near the time, it's just winging it Braxton Amos style. It can work in juniors but you get exposed at seniors. (I'm not counting the Georgian adult transfer, since he is about as relevant to the actual state of US wrestling as Taz is to Bahrain).

GR was ripe for the taking. Russia was a paper tiger, coasting on the legacy and fumes of the soviet era in the 90s through 2010s. A country who put together a critical mass of participation and concentrated training from a young age could topple them. And it looks like Iran did. Congrats.

I'm not a fan of that guy who spends the fist two minutes of every bout reading a section of the wrestlers' wikipedia entries .... U20 bronze medalist, U23 silver, Asian championships Gold, Asian Games Silver medal. What's the point if you just rattle off 20 medals for both wrestlers and don't give any context to what they mean? Mentioning if one of them is a highly decorated legend or on a win streak is fine, but we don't need to know about their 5 man field continental bronzes and U20 accolades.

Biggest upsets were Aleksanjan and Nao. Although, 77 kg is a turnover machine and Nao secured the ultimate prize already (something that Akzhol may rue till the day he retires) I'm not sure what Aleksanjan's plans and motivations are. Just try again at the Olympics? He keeps finding creative ways of losing. And where is Milov? Injured? Wins Euro gold and then disappears, great. I think Bisultanov is the most talented rep at 87 kg but I get the feeling that Losincz is starting to mentally own some of the other medal contender wrestlers (Komarov, Novikov, Takacs). Want to see how Emelin does. I don't think any truly great wrestlers are in his bracket, but Emelin would be another rare bright spot for another abysmal performance by Russia's longstanding standards.

That's sort of happening to Russian right now, with a lot of their C team caucus region wrestlers opting for Greco (since it's easier to make the team). The results have not been great.

I think Medved going 7 years unbeaten and getting the best of a rivalry with another legend (Ivanitsky) puts him at the top for me.

Well that's the trick with 55 kg isn't it. Not many grown men can make 55 kg. The crop of malnourished farm boys that made up these weight classes are becoming a relic of the 20th century. I think it's partly why these really low weight classes seem to have less volatility than 57-80 kg. A far tinier talent pool and a lot of teens/early 20 year old passerbys. So an experienced wrester who actually belongs at the weight can grab a lot of titles.

Bad loss by Schultz. Semenov is good, but 5-2 is a large gap at this weight class. Schutlz's defense isn't good enough to keep the field from scoring on him. He also doesn't have a great gut, lift, or push out to win him matches. So if you can't really score and you can't stop giving up points, well your chances of medaling will be low. Russia looks on pace to be even worse in GR than MFS. They didn't even field a 55 kg (I think that speaks to the decline even more than the team score)?

Schultz has about the worst draw you can get. The on paper second best guy (Semenov) in the first round, and then the heavy favorite to win gold waiting in the quarters. Semenov is not a disciplined wrestlers, so he does on occasion foam one in and show up way out of shape and overweight. Maybe that can help. Too many wreslters in the field that are a level above whatever the US brings at 97 and 87 kg for any real chance. At 77, yes Nao but no Akzhol. So that's a major absence that weakens the field, possibly the most talented rep in the potential field is out. Bey has tough match to start against Amoyan. Bey is good but he'll most likely need to win 2 or 3 coin flip matches just to medal. At 60, I don't recognize these names besides Victor. Fumita and Emelin are not in the field. I don't see a Cuban entry either. Yay Emelin is back on the world stage, with one of the most technical and aesthetically pleasing styles of wrestling.

I thought the team photos offered some interesting insights into the different philosophies of the teams. Irans team photo was just the coaches, a large retinue of professional looking middle aged men who wouldn't look out of place in North American or Western European professional sports teams. The American photo puts the wrestlers front and center but has a few grizzled coaches flanking the team. Japan looks like it's athlete driven and amateurish. As if athletes and seconds doubled up as coaches in their warm up gear, a self lead an scholastic vibes. The coaches are just barely in frame in the far right.

Cuba, I think it's economics. Their wrestling programs have no funding now. For Turkey. I think it's a combination of nepotism/complacency and if I were to guess depopulation which particularly hits in historically wrestling producing rural areas. Taha Akgul is working a dream job where his day to day is probably answering a couple emails from home, walking into an office twice a week (or less), and having a press conference once every month or so. In America Taylor and Burroughs are running academies, coaching and being training partners for top American prospects. I don't think Americans would be as good if they had do nothing bureaucrat jobs in the department of health right after they stopped competing. Taha should get that role when he's in his 50s, after putting in time as a coach. Instead of giving it to someone with a particular vision and plan of action, they treated the position like a prize for a good competitive career.

They won 18 straight team titles in the Soviet Era and almost 8 straight in the 00s. So something has changed. Their stars are older too. Uguev, Siakov, and Sad are getting long in the tooth. Their young stars are either not as good as the previous crops or are transferring out. They might also be more sensitive to outside forces, since their wrestling regions are concentrated in 2 or 3 small outer provinces.

Yazdani is still recovering from his Olympic injury. Geno was contacted by a flo personality, he said that he's taking a year off to celebrate his Olympic Gold medal. Akgul was given a cushy administrative job (president of the wrestling federation) and is retired (that type of culture helps explain why Turkey is so down in Freestyle).

Yes. They have 0 wrestling culture and their native born talent is worse than non entities like the UK or the Dutch.

North Korea must have some really smart and competent coaches. Isolated with very little to no outside cross training, and they still produce world level competitors.

I think that's going to be true for almost every wrestler in the not too distant future.

Looks like Turkey is cooked. They have been a Freestyle wrestling power since the 1940s (80 years), and now that Akgul is retired, they don't have much of anyone. Heavyweight is also the outlier weight class that let's you get away with a really good athlete and not the greatest wrestling scene. Is Russia no longer the pinnacle? Is it the war? Their top performers are in their 30s and the transfers are beating the home reps. Could be a new era where Russia is battling it out with the other top nations, instead of the dominant power. For all the talk of systems, I don't think the Russian version of relying on 2 or 3 small provinces is perfect either.

Some people mature early. Forrest does not look like one of those cases.

The Ugeuv-Forrest match looked like a boy against a grown man. How tall is Forrest? There is no way he makes these low weights after he matures physically, right?

Geno?

Parris might have been a fluke pin. And that was in juniors, people jump levels around and after those ages. Zare is looking like a terrible match up for Masoumi. Masoumi seems physically mature and Zare still handles him. Zare is kryptonite for some wrestlers. Gwiz would fold like a wet paper bag every time Zare got a hold of him.

I want to see if anyone can challenge Zare. Because if he techs his way through this field, could be a long reign for the Iranian.

If Sad ends up not going, I think you'd have to go back to the late 1930s (Johannes Kotkas) to find great wrestlers whose careers were derailed by politics to an even greater extent.