maligned

Semis have been super delayed. Starting any minute. Spencer is there and is a slight favorite in his match. If he wins he qualifies. Zain lost, but Ochir from Mongolia that beat him made it to the semis and is also a slight favorite to win and to bring Zain back into the tournament (where he would need 4 victories tomorrow to earn the True 3rd position he needs at this point).

Lee will be first up for the night session. Ochir/Sujeet will be 4th up.

They qualified 4 of 6 in Greco. That's finished. They've got 4 of 6 in women's and have one still alive that needs 2 more wins today. They only had 2 of 6 men's freestyle qualified coming into today. Of their 4 freestylers this weekend: 57 is eliminated. 65 has a good shot to be brought into repechage but isn't favored to end up winning a spot. 74 is in the semi's but will need a mild upset there or in the 3rd place playoffs to qualify. 86 is the #1 seed, but had to wrestle the clear bracket favorite as a non-seed and lost. He'll get brought back in to the repechage but will have some work to do, needing to win 4 matches tomorrow to get the True 3rd spot.

They're showcasing the Olympic qualifying matches at night in the same way they normally do medal matches: Semi-finals as two automatic qualifying matches from today's style, followed by the True 3rd "playoff" matches from the previous day's style.

no

That I'll buy...but this talk that Sujeet is easier than Kudiev or not dynamic is silly.

What are you guys talking about?! He's only 21 and he's only had 5 senior level matches before today. The least he scored was 6 points in a 6-0 win. And the "worst" guy he faced in those 5 was Destribats, who he beat 15-4 when he was only 19. He's very, very dangerous and high-scoring.

Sujeet is very, very dangerous. Way more dangerous than Kudiev. Kudiev doesn't get the results Sujeet has. Despite a slip-up to See-bass last year, Sujeet's resume is high-level. Not least of which is knocking Bajrang off of his perch. And an easy win over Yianni when they met. Ochir has to beat him and Zain has to beat him as one of the 4 he'd need tomorrow.

Normally would benefit Kudiev's bad cardio, but might be better for the non-fresh Ochir here.

Sidenote...Ben Honis has had a very solid 2-1 day for Italy. Almost took out long-time stalwart Baranowski of Poland in the quarters. Baranowski probably will fall to the rising Chinese kid in the semi's and end Honis' run, though.

Despite the concerns, I think Ochir wins by a few.

We've been talking about it this week that Kudiev probably wouldn't seem extremely scary as an opponent for either guy if they were equally spent--but Kudiev's had two easy matches and it makes it way more concerning.

If he wins later in the semi-final, he's in. If he loses, he needs to win TWO tomorrow--a traditional bronze and the bronze vs. bronze True 3rd match.

They're taking 3 from each weight. Reaching the final is automatic. But if the Mongolian reaches the final, he'll be brought back in. But he would need to win 4 in a row tomorrow--two regular repechage, a traditional bronze match (usually they award two bronzes), then the bronze vs bronze special True 3rd wrestle-off.

I think he's explosive enough. But I'm not sure he's got the freestyle-specific athletic defense or the insane hand-fighting necessary to defend the light-speed attacks he'll keep seeing. Micic does it with scrambling and stickiness. Gilman does it with killer, killer hand-fighting. Lee needs to spend all of his time on these skills before the Olympics.

Seriously, who made this schedule? Afternoon round was supposed to start 5 minutes ago and the evening round in a little over an hour. This "morning" session won't be done for another hour and a half. I've never seen an international event day estimated so badly.

I said this a minute ago too...I think we struggle to provide the ultra-elite athleticism at this weight class to pull off both the brutal hand-fighting and the stuntman thrills necessary to win globally when all the best guys are there (and not up at 70 in non-olympic years).

Once again...we struggle to provide the ultra-elite athleticism at this weight class to pull off both the brutal hand-fighting and the stuntman thrills necessary to win globally.

probably not this late in a tie match

China's usually been dangerous at 57 and 65, but don't always get elite wins.

Yeah, it's comical that they have the traditional bronze matches scheduled for 4:45 local time (in less than 2 hours). They won't be wrestling the 65kg round of 16 till around then and quarters will go way beyond that unless they bring in some additional mats.

You're right. I had the men's matches starting right at 10am local time when actually it was women's repechage first round matches first. Everything has been running about 30-40 minutes later than my estimates in the initial post.

How will the cut affect him coming back in 2 hours from a match with those high-leverage situations? He'll probably have Egorov, who won't have had to work as hard his first two matches as Lee just did. Sometimes a match that takes a guy into deep waters like that derails him completely going forward. The gas tank just doesn't refill. I hope he's able to recover well!

Check out the chart IU alum put up on the schedule thread I started

Match numbers are on the brackets at arena.uww.org. You can follow along based on those.