SocraTease

My guess: Looks like they are holding off DT vs. Brooks until one of the last matches this round to give Brooks time to recover because he wrestled at 10:30 PM last night and had to cut weight after that.

Blades wrestled a smart match. Got the lead and kept it. Gray keeps coming like a slow shark, but Blades was able to hold on.

Llilidahl vs. Blaze up on mat 3

The Zain vs. Lee match was like a room wrestle off. Low scoring, predictable, not very exciting. You find a way to squeak out a win and that's it. Not fan friendly.

Gilman wrestled a strong match against Lee and it almost worked. He didn't get the breaks on a quick stoppage when he was in on the leg. He didn't get the break on what could have been a four, and even Lee's TD to a turn was something he might have prevented in retrospect. The point: these two guys are close, and Gilman seems to have the better gas tank the longer the match goes.

I thought they wrestle two matches this morning at 57KG and 65KG and only a third one tonight if necessary

I think some of us might have short memories and are forgetting or downplaying some of JB's "line pushing" wrestling against Dake and many others through the years: hands to the face, hard clubs, dancing around evasively with time running out, pulling up his socks slowly for a breather, trash talking off the mat, and so on. And in many (even most) ways that is just part of the game. He's been a great ambassador for the sport but the point is: he is also a very, very, fierce competitor and comparable at times to someone like Michael Jordan, who would always look for the slightest advantages and ways of getting into the head of his opponents. When you are older, you get savvier (and wiser) if you want to keep on winning. When you are young, you also rely on your relative advantages, too, whatever they are.

20 year old Kennedy Blades over Gray. Youth finally conquers experience and mom strength. 44 year old Аляксандр Фёдаравіч Кікінёў (aka Aliaksandr Fiodaravich Kikiniov) bests Kamal Bey at Greco 77KG. Experience, gray hair, and dad strength conquers youth and then does a hair dye commercial afterwards.

Aliaksandr Kikinou is 44 years young. Born April 9, 1980. And he is in the Greco 77KG finals. He wrestled in the 2004 Olympics for Belarussia. Audrey Jimenez is 18 years old and she is in the Women's 50KG finals. She just went to her prom in high school and won the Arizona State boy's tournament. Old is the new young . . . and vice versa.

Olympic Trials Finals - Saturday, April 20 Men's Freestyle 57 kg: Spencer Lee vs Thomas Gilman 65 kg: Zain Retherford vs Nick Lee 74 kg: Kyle Dake vs Jason Nolf 86kg: David Taylor vs Aaron Brooks 97 kg: Kyle Snyder vs Isaac Trumble 125 kg: Mason Parris vs Hayden Zillmer Women's Freestyle 50 kg: Sarah Hildebrandt vs Audrey Jimenez 53 kg: Dom Parrish vs Haley Augello 57 kg: Helen Maroulis vs Jacarra Winchester 62 kg: Kayla Miracle vs Macey Kilty 68 kg: Amit Elor vs Forrest Molinari 76 kg: Adeline Gray vs Kennedy Blades Greco-Roman 60 kg: Ildar Hafizov vs Dalton Roberts 67 kg: Alejandro Sancho vs Ellis Coleman 77 kg: Kamal Bey vs Aliaksandr Kikinou 87 kg: Spencer Woods vs Payton Jacobson 97 kg: Alan Vera vs Josef Rau 130 kg: Cohlton Schultz vs Adam Coon

It's a bit like being an incumbent in politics. I think Incumbents are re-elected something like 98% of the time. And I'm not exaggerating. There are no returning medalists at 57KG and 65KG so those matches might be more wide open and exciting.

Who you got? 57KG 65KG 74KG 86KG 97KG 125 KG Women's matches (e.g., Blades vs. Gray) or Greco?

Anyone want to talk about tomorrow's matches? ... there are some good ones coming up with everything on the line. Nahhh ... I didn't think so. Carry on with the kibitzing and complaints about the first day of action

Singlet pulls ... another reason to move toward a two-piece uniform consisting of compression shorts and a form-fitted compression shirt ... as some high schools have done?

Vicarious life is precarious. I would love to see some videos of fans watching their favorite wrestlers on their TVs or computers at home ... better yet, in the stands. Especially when the mirror neurons are firing and one is leaning this way or that, crouching, or stretching to "help" the wrestler you follow. Perhaps more of us should enter Masters tournaments and limp home with humility. https://nautil.us/why-some-sports-fans-have-more-fun-237063/

We root for and against laundry

Would you say that any of this kind of behavior might be attributable in part to the MMA-ing of college and freestyle wrestling -- the trash talking, the Twitter (X) exchanges, etc.?

Hopefully Zahid goes 92 for the non-olympic trials in the fall. If Brooks loses to DT, maybe he will as well and we will get a re-match

Ok. I didn't see the shirt. Every fan base, including Penn State, has it's, um, obnoxious fans. And it is often the case that winning teams (clubs) probably have more of them because it breeds a kind of arrogance. This particular fan was probably trying to get the goat of the GOAT

They also overruled the two point call ... so it is moot

Well, the assumption here of course is that it was a Penn State fan. They were not the only ones in attendance. People came from all over. It wasn't a home dual meet. Just sayin'

I wonder if the UWW could adopt a policy of something like the following to prevent guys from running at the end of the match, something that almost everyone does, including the very elite guys: With one minute left, if you are evading action, you get a warning (like a raised fist in folkstyle). If you continue to evade (run), the other guy gets a point. This way, you are warned and have the opportunity to engage and change your action and it doesn't leave things immediately in the hands of a ref. It would be a policy in addition to the caution plus one when guys go out of bound with larger leads. And it would help to rectify evasion when the score is much closer at the end. Just a thought.

Any one else think JB was going to leave his shoes on the mat? It seemed like he might have entertained the thought but then the competitor within him said "no". Just a guess based on his bodily comportment

If the singlet pull was unintentional or didn't affect anything, I don't think it should be called ... or maybe just given a warning. Sad to end one's Olympic dreams on that small faux pas