2023 World Wrestling tournament...

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

57 minutes ago, nhs67 said:

I think if they guarantee the Top 8 seeds get at least a first round bye, then we might see more take the ranking series seriously.

 

This is a swell idea. Makes sense. 

[WrestlingRasta]

2 hours ago, ILLINIWrestlingBlog said:

Koontz got jobbed pretty hard in a tech fall loss. Romania would've been pinned except they called a mystery leg foul that I couldn't see. Romania frantically points to his leg while laying on his back. Nice ploy! 

The leg foul was neither mysterious nor hard to see.

[nhs67]

14 minutes ago, WrestlingRasta said:

The leg foul was neither mysterious nor hard to see.

What makes it mysterious to American eyes is that it is inconsistently called, in comparison(s), to how it is called in international matches.

[nhs67]

Tinfoil hat moment, gents.

What if Bey were to also head to Freestyle?  He likely trains it often in the room... just not in a serious manner and more of a workout partner.  Would he be a 79 KG or 74 KG and what sort of level do folks think he would be at to start?  Vincenzo level?  Lower?

[D3 for LU]

I personally, have not got all excited about the national GR team for awhile.

The results have been pretty abysmal and unless a major push to emphasize the importance of GR, it's going to remain 3rd tier behind men & women's FS.

(Hey, if we get a medal, great! But expectations are low for yours truly. No need for you to reach for the Tums when the results crater thru the floor.)

D3  

[WrestlingRasta]

3 minutes ago, nhs67 said:

What makes it mysterious to American eyes is that it is inconsistently called, in comparison(s), to how it is called in international matches.

What about that sequence is inconsistently called?

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

44 minutes ago, WrestlingRasta said:

The leg foul was neither mysterious nor hard to see.

Please select another stream. 

[Tripnsweep]

Anyone remember when Greco carried the banner for USA Wrestling and was much more consistent than freestyle? 

[Jason Bryant]

6 minutes ago, ILLINIWrestlingBlog said:

Please select another stream. 

What was mysterious about it? 

[WrestlingRasta]

11 minutes ago, ILLINIWrestlingBlog said:

Please select another stream. 

No need. I saw red step up and block blue with his left left, then wrap the ham with his left arm. The stream I selected was pretty clear. 

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

Bey is back in through repechage. New life! He'll have to wade through a group of World Medalists, but he's been waiting and rehydrating. Go America! 

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

31 minutes ago, Jason Bryant said:

What was mysterious about it? 

It not happening. 

[Jason Bryant]

1 minute ago, ILLINIWrestlingBlog said:

It not happening. 

Completely happened. 

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

Bey has to win three in repechage to get to the Bronze match. He's got Sarkkinen of Finland first, a U23 2023 Gold at 82kg, but Kamal can win that. In the last year, the Finn has beaten USA's RaVaughn Perkins by one and lost to Spencer Woods by four. 

Then, it's Gutu of Moldova next, another 2023 U23 Gold, but at 77kg. 

Finally, there's Zhadrayev of Kazakhstan, who is a 2017 World Silver. 

[WrestlingRasta]

36 minutes ago, ILLINIWrestlingBlog said:

It not happening. 

 

1 hour ago, WrestlingRasta said:

 red step up and block blue with his left leg, then wrap the ham with his left arm. 

Unless you are under the misunderstanding that in those instances, red would have had to have held for some period of time in order for it to be a foul.

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

Amit Elor is World Champion! So strong and smart and technical! 8-2 over Mongolia. 

[WrestlingRasta]

Talk about a robotic destroyer of worlds......

[Jeff Waters]

 There are no words to describe how bright her future is.  I know it is early but if she is able to handle the weight she is on a path to be one of our greatest ever.

 

 

[Wrestleknownothing]

4 hours ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

Want a high seed?  Be active. Go to rankings tourneys.  It certainly helped guys like Rivera.

I know it is sacrilege in some circles to suggest this, but I think Nick Lee may have found some more success with Rivera's draw.  Should have hit some tourneys, Rivera did.

It was a bit messed up this year, because the Russians who may have wanted to attend Euros, ranking series events, or 2022 Worlds, were barred from doing so.

The challenge is, I think, there is a cost benefit analysis that goes on here. And it does not favor attendance.

For this World Championships the US wrestlers spent a week at Ramstein Air Base in Germany as part of an acclimation camp. Ramstein and Belgrade are in the same time zone (GMT+2). State College is 6 hours behind (GMT-4). To perform optimally requires getting over jet lag which takes time. And time is money. Attending these events costs USAW a lot of money. Which is why they send the athletes home as soon as they are done competing. No free vacations, no extra nights in a hotel.

The four ranking series events were at Zagreb (GMT+2), Alexandria (GMT+3), Bishkek (GMT+6), and Budapest (GMT+2). From the east coast that is a six to ten hour time difference (and in the wrong direction for jet lag purposes). Eastern Europeans, Iranians, Russians, and to a small extent, Japanese all have a distinct advantage when travelling to these events.

If you are going to the events to perform optimally, you would need to send your team a week ahead of time. And that does not take into account that you may not yet know who your team is given the US selection system. So, now you may need to send multiple athletes at every weight until the representative is nailed down. Puerto Rico has an advantage there. They have one guy and they already know who it is.

Of course, you can also just choose to attend without optimizing your chances. Fly in a day or two before you wrestle and just pick up what you can. This will also put the athletes at higher risk of injury, both at and after the competition. You have to include that in the cost column when doing the analysis.

Then there are the athletes. If you talked to any of them in Belgrade there was a common theme, "it seems like I have been gone a month, and I cannot wait to get back home". Living out of a suitcase is hard, doing it five times in eight months is brutal. And if they are still in college (Arujau, Snyder in the day, etc.) it may be impossible to do both and be any good at either.

It should be no surprise that an organization headed by an eastern European has chosen a series of sites that favor eastern Europeans, so we should acknowledge that it is not as simple as just show up. The seeding system is supposed to be about rewarding performance, but the people in charge of the purse strings want to make it about rewarding attendance for the obvious, pocket-lining reasons.

Saying everyone knows the rules ignores this basic fact. I would rather see a crappy rule changed. The rule should align with the goal of rewarding the best, not with rewarding the eager. I get that it can be hard to differentiate between best and most eager if the best do not compete. If they want greater attendance from the US, the current team champions (and it is not at all clear to me that they want this), then they need to be more geographically diverse with the location of the ranking series events.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Wrestleknownothing

[WildTurk]

Congrats to Elor and her family!  World Champion forever!

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

8 minutes ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

The challenge is, I think, there is a cost benefit analysis that goes on here. And it does not favor attendance.

For this World Championships the US wrestlers spent a week at Ramstein Air Base in Germany as part of an acclimation camp. Ramstein and Belgrade are in the same time zone (GMT+2). State College is 6 hours behind (GMT-4). To perform optimally requires getting over jet lag which takes time. And time is money. Attending these events costs USAW a lot of money. Which is why they send the athletes home as soon as they are done competing. No free vacations, no extra nights in a hotel.

The four ranking series events were at Zagreb (GMT+2), Alexandria (GMT+3), Bishkek (GMT+6), and Budapest (GMT+2). From the east coast that is a six to ten hour time difference (and in the wrong direction for jet lag purposes). Eastern Europeans, Iranians, Russians, and to a small extent, Japanese all have a distinct advantage when travelling to these events.

If you are going to the events to perform optimally, you would need to send your team a week ahead of time. And that does not take into account that you may not yet know who your team is given the US selection system. So, now you may need to send multiple athletes at every weight until the representative is nailed down. Puerto Rico has an advantage there. They have one guy and they already know who it is.

Of course, you can also just choose to attend without optimizing your chances. Fly in a day or two before you wrestle and just pick up what you can. This will also put the athletes at higher risk of injury, both at and after the competition. You have to include that in the cost column when doing the analysis.

Then there are the athletes. If you talked to any of them in Belgrade there was a common theme, "it seems like I have been gone a month, and I cannot wait to get back home". Living out of a suitcase is hard, doing it five times in eight months is brutal. And if they are still in college (Arujau, Snyder in the day, etc.) it may be impossible to do both and be any good at either.

It should be no surprise that an organization headed by an eastern European has chosen a series of sites that favor eastern Europeans, so we should acknowledge that it is not as simple as just show up. The seeding system is supposed to be about rewarding performance, but the people in charge of the purse strings want to make it about rewarding attendance for the obvious, pocket-lining reasons.

Saying everyone knows the rules ignores this basic fact. I would rather see a crappy rule changed. The rule should align with the goal of rewarding the best, not with rewarding the eager. I get that it can be hard to differentiate between best and most eager if the best do not compete. If they want greater attendance from the US, the current team champions (and it is not at all clear to me that they want this), then they need to be more geographically diverse with the location of the ranking series events.

They likely don't want greater attendance from the US, and my tinfoil hat is also telling me that (because of recent US success) the deck may be even more stacked against us in coming years.

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

Bruntil in the hole for Bronze. She's got a French woman who is a three-time World medalist. Go Emma! 

[bnwtwg]

55 minutes ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

The challenge is, I think, there is a cost benefit analysis that goes on here. And it does not favor attendance.

For this World Championships the US wrestlers spent a week at Ramstein Air Base in Germany as part of an acclimation camp. Ramstein and Belgrade are in the same time zone (GMT+2). State College is 6 hours behind (GMT-4). To perform optimally requires getting over jet lag which takes time. And time is money. Attending these events costs USAW a lot of money. Which is why they send the athletes home as soon as they are done competing. No free vacations, no extra nights in a hotel.

The four ranking series events were at Zagreb (GMT+2), Alexandria (GMT+3), Bishkek (GMT+6), and Budapest (GMT+2). From the east coast that is a six to ten hour time difference (and in the wrong direction for jet lag purposes). Eastern Europeans, Iranians, Russians, and to a small extent, Japanese all have a distinct advantage when travelling to these events.

If you are going to the events to perform optimally, you would need to send your team a week ahead of time. And that does not take into account that you may not yet know who your team is given the US selection system. So, now you may need to send multiple athletes at every weight until the representative is nailed down. Puerto Rico has an advantage there. They have one guy and they already know who it is.

Of course, you can also just choose to attend without optimizing your chances. Fly in a day or two before you wrestle and just pick up what you can. This will also put the athletes at higher risk of injury, both at and after the competition. You have to include that in the cost column when doing the analysis.

Then there are the athletes. If you talked to any of them in Belgrade there was a common theme, "it seems like I have been gone a month, and I cannot wait to get back home". Living out of a suitcase is hard, doing it five times in eight months is brutal. And if they are still in college (Arujau, Snyder in the day, etc.) it may be impossible to do both and be any good at either.

It should be no surprise that an organization headed by an eastern European has chosen a series of sites that favor eastern Europeans, so we should acknowledge that it is not as simple as just show up. The seeding system is supposed to be about rewarding performance, but the people in charge of the purse strings want to make it about rewarding attendance for the obvious, pocket-lining reasons.

Saying everyone knows the rules ignores this basic fact. I would rather see a crappy rule changed. The rule should align with the goal of rewarding the best, not with rewarding the eager. I get that it can be hard to differentiate between best and most eager if the best do not compete. If they want greater attendance from the US, the current team champions (and it is not at all clear to me that they want this), then they need to be more geographically diverse with the location of the ranking series events.

Genuine question: has the US offered to host a rankings event? How are sites determined? They seem to be focused on prestigious events of a nation and the only prestigious international events are the US Open and the Farrell.

Farrell occurs after worlds at the end of the year so it is essentially a non-starter.

US Open would require a fundamental change to the WTT/OTT selection criteria.

So you are looking at spinning up a new tournament - when and where?

[Wrestleknownothing]

13 minutes ago, bnwtwg said:

Genuine question: has the US offered to host a rankings event? How are sites determined? They seem to be focused on prestigious events of a nation and the only prestigious international events are the US Open and the Farrell.

Farrell occurs after worlds at the end of the year so it is essentially a non-starter.

US Open would require a fundamental change to the WTT/OTT selection criteria.

So you are looking at spinning up a new tournament - when and where?

Good question. I do not know if the US has offered. It is possible that is has, but because of our government's travel restrictions with other countries that we have been rejected. Or we have not offered due to those same restrictions.

Here are the rules for ranking events:

https://cdn.uww.org/s3fs-public/2022-02/uww_ranking_rule_book.pdf?VersionId=gWyYUPkiTFNwpBoPZDtZNmn_5UbdEOse

[CA_Wrestler]

With Bruntil AND Ishii losing in their bronze matches, they're gonna have a wrestle off for the last Olympic quota at 68kg.  This means that Ishii doesn't have Japan's spot and I have a very, very good feeling that Ozaki will bump up to 68kg to try and take that spot for Paris.