The US sent a really strong team to Belgrade. They had 4 individual champions, 4 silver medalists and a 5th place finisher. Iran finished 2nd and Japan was 3rd.
Notable for the US Jordan Burroughs won his 7th world level gold medal. That puts him as the US wrestler with the most.
David Taylor beat Yazdani from Iran in the finals, avenging last year’s loss. Taylor beat Yazdani in the Olympic finals too.
Kyle Snyder won his 4th Olympic or World championship.
Kyle Dake won his 4th world championship, matching the number of NCAA titles he won at Cornell.
2021 World champion Thomas Gilman fell short in the finals. 3x NCAA champion Zain Retherford broke through with a silver medal at his 3rd world championships. J’den Cox who is a past world champion and Olympic bronze medalist lost 2-1 to Ghasempour of Iran who beat him in the semis last year. Yianni Diakamohalis who is a 3x NCAA champion for Cornell lost in the finals to take silver.
Past NCAA champion Seth Gross lost a wild semifinal match and then subsequently lost the bronze medal match. Hayden Zillmer did not get drawn into the repechage after losing to former world champion Geno Petriashvili in the quarterfinals. Petriashvili lost in the semifinals so Zillmer was eliminated.
The US got some help at 70kg when Amir Yazdani forfeited his opening match and was not drawn back in as his opponent he forfeited to did not reach the finals.
I was like what happened to the Russians and just checked and realized it was like the 84 Olympics. Japan won 2 golds in men’s freestyle tho, nice. But this is an asterix competition, let’s be honest.
I see US also had no medals in Greco, has this been a trend for a while? Not not medaling at all but weak in Greco now in general?
Also see Japan’s stanglehold in womens is loosening but they still medaled in 9/10 divisions with 5 golds. So they are still #1 in wrestling and judo.
In a couple weights Russia isn’t a factor. Taylor, Burroughs and Dake would have won anyway. Plus there are plenty of Russians who defected and wrestle for other countries. The only US wrestler who probably wouldn’t win was Snyder who only has one win over Sadulaev in like 6 tries. It would have been more interesting with Russia there but I think the US had a strong lineup that would have won either way. It definitely would have been closer.
Greco is a mess right now. Their only recent medalist abruptly retired to sign with WWE and 2 others opted out of the championships so we sent backups. Apparently they aren’t fans of how Ivan runs things and were mad Woogie got fired. I think two guys made it to a bronze medal match. 2007 seems like a long ways away now.
This isn’t like 84 at all. All we were missing was Russia and Belarus. There were no other Soviet republics back then. But now you have places with very strong wrestling like Azerbaijan and Georgia. In 84 Cuba was out, Iran boycotted both 80 and 84. The only 2 Eastern bloc countries who participated in 84 were Yugoslavia and Romania. No Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, etc. So while no Russia had an impact, it was nowhere near what 84 was. If all the “stans” and Iran were not there, then it would be comparable.
Fair enough with the other countries. But when the #1 country ain’t there, that’s an asterix. Like if Japan was out of a judo world or Olympics. I do see men’s free was close in 2021 and not sure how the divisions were looking this year but still…
My comment above was in response to this I meant. Btw we’re Georgia and Azerbaijan always strong or just recently? They are also very strong in judo and I believe Mongolia has emerged recently in wrestling as they have in judo.
I also see Russia has only failed to win freestyle at the worlds only twice over the last decade with the US winning by one point in 2016 over Russia I think and Iran winning in 2014 by 2 points over Russia.
No, he challenged Snyder on social media and Snyder responded in kind. The two have a total bromance going. This spring before the war Kyle was hanging out with sadulaev shooting guns and shit and competed against a bunch of Russians in Russia.
rashidov at 65kg would have been in medal contention…
with all that being said, still no asterick… it is the world championships… you wrestle who shows up…
only hancock opted out of greco… the other two popped…
greco is the most popular style of wrestling worldwide and the US is scared to death of it… very frustrating…
but…
some things are popping off…
