J'den Cox Cox finished his day in Mongolia with a 5-0 record at 86 kilos (Photo/Mark Lundy, Lutte-Lens.com)The top three wrestlers in each weight class qualify their countries for the Olympic Games.
Cox finished the day 5-0. In the gold-medal match he blanked Pedro Ceballos Fuentes of Venezuela 6-0. He clinched his berth in the Olympics in the semifinals when he defeated 2013 Asian champion Umidjon Ismanov of Uzbekistan 5-2.
Cox entered the Olympic Team Trials in Iowa City two weeks ago as the No. 9 seed and won the titles with victories over Jake Herbert, Clayton Foster, Keith Gavin and Kyle Dake.
He's one of two college wrestlers on the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team, joining returning World champion Kyle Snyder.
Frank Molinaro also attempted to qualify for the Olympic Games, but finished 1-1 and failed to qualify at 65 kilos. He opened his day with a 10-0 technical fall victory over Xuan Dinh Nguyen of Vietnam. Molinaro then was defeated 6-4 by two-time World medalist Yakup Gor of Turkey. Gor was defeated in the semifinals, which knocked Molinaro out of the competition.
After this weekend the U.S. has qualified 12 of the 18 weight classes across the three styles. Five have qualified in men's freestyle, three in Greco-Roman and four in women's freestyle. The athletes who have not qualified will have one more opportunity to qualify at the World Olympic Qualifier in Istanbul, Turkey, May 6-8.
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