MHSN

first, UWW is terrible in organizing, we are supposed to be in middle of men's semifinals by now. but yet women's BB matches are not started yet. we had something like 40 wrestlers in each weights, obviously it could take toooo long. it could be a 5-6 days tournament. anyway Chamizo had couple of very narrow wins but he lost when he was clearly better. Valiev is obviously in a bad shape physically, he knew he can't compete with Chamizo for 6 minutes. so he ran and ran and attacked only couple of times when he had to. that's surprising someone as experienced as Chamizo falling in his trap. I think he will get another chance in repechage but still he has to win 3 matches tomorrow. not sure if his body can manage that. 65kg QF was a clear robbery, but I think it's easy to steal something from PRK, they can't protest. Dudaev (ALB) didn't dseserve those late 2 pts at all. but looks like Albania is the new friend of UWW, so their mercenary Russians are getting favorable calls. Valiev also got some today. the biggest loser of the day was Baran (POL) he was easily leading the Venezuelan 2-0 but then just lost his focus in a second and lost it 2-2. he is not going to get a 2nd chance IMO.

quota matches 57: vs / vs 65: vs / vs 74: vs / vs 86: vs / vs 97: vs / vs 125: vs / vs

That was really hard to watch it sucks that we are this weak in one of the Olympic weights and they tried different guys and each one was worse than the previous one. I would send a different wrestler than Sarlak but the outcome was most probably the same, failure. this is only the 2nd time in history that we fail to qualify a full freestyle team. and the first time (back in 1996) was only because someone failed the weight-in.

of course I was but missed the early action, since I was looking at Mat A (another amazing match between CHN and UKR) the moment I turned my head the Chinese was completing his last turn. so no idea how he scored the first 4 pts

Chamizo survived by the skin of his teeth, again he fought his heart out in the 2nd period and scored the winning takedown only in last 2-3 seconds wasted lots of energy in this match which wasn't supposed to be challenging. next round will be a bit harder.

The Greco qualification is over there were 96+1 quotas, ( 96 + a conman refugee) if we consider RUS and BLR as separate teams (which I do) we will have 37 countries in Greco with at least one wrestler. 6 5 4 3 2 1 41 quotas for Europe, 26 for Asia, 15 Pan America and 14 Africa from traditionally strong Greco teams I think Sweden is missing, Brazil, Croatia, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia and Mexico won at least 1 Greco quota last time in 2021 but failed to do so this time.

Hlinchuk is indeed a future star, only 2 or 3 super heavyweight wrestlers in the world can turn Nabi and Knystautas. these guys are huge and strong and he scored against them despite being so much lighter. I know Khaslakhanov is also very good and won the quota for them at 97kg, but if I was the Belarusian coach, I would try Hlinchuk in his original weight. I really think he stands a chance for gold. but I assume they know what's the best for them, if they send Khaslakhanov to Paris at 97kg that probably means he beats Hlinchuk in training matches.

I think ElSayed owes this quota to Etlinger he was in a terrible shape physically and one more match, specially early in the morning (when you just cut weight twice) would be very exhausting for him. and Etlinger is a tough guy I think ElSayed wasn't on the mat today for more than 4-5 minutes. he finished all his matches very quick before gassing badly like he did yesterday.

so this is the last quota matches in men's Greco-Roman 60: Tibilov vs Arnaut 67: ElSayed vs Koshkar 77: Levai vs Bey 87: Kulynycz vs Gobadze 97: Dzhuzupbekov vs Lazogianis 130: Hlinchuk vs Nabi 12 different NOCs but Estonia and Poland are looking for their 1st greco quotas

Bisultanov is officially out of the Olympics he gassed very badly in the 2nd period, feel sorry for him, obviously he is not recovered from his last season injury. better luck in LA 2028 and Kessidis could kill someone today he was very angry at refs and I think he was right somehow. the officiating could be better.

so ... Russia won't have 6 Greco wrestlers in Paris anyway. Visaitov lost the repechage to Koshkar (KAZ) today is the day for M. El-Sayed so far, Etlinger didn't show up. (which was great for the Egyptian, going to the next round without wasting energy) he won the next match in 2 minutes. looks fresh and ready, still needs 2 more win for the quota.

one of my problems with women's wrestling is some of them keep changing their name sometimes even 2-3 times during their careers why Alina Hrushina is competing under her old name Akobiia ? is she divorced Mr Hrushyn already or just an administration mistake ? (that's still Hrushyna on back of her singlet)

OK. it's always easier to write something after watching them wrestle 60kg I think Tibilov wins it. no big treat for him. but maybe Korean or mostly Arnaut can challenge him. Tracz had a big win against Abuladze , slim chance for him too. 67kg El-Sayed was terrible physically today from the start. he has to cut weight again tomorrow and win 4 matches to qualify. I don't think that happens. Etlinger or Kinsinger wins bronze from the top half. in bottom half Visaitov is the clear favorite but he has to win 4 matches, not an easy task. Koshkar or even Li can beat him. but still I think it goes to Visaitov 77kg Levai has to beat Spain (should be easy) then Lithuania (not that easy) and Liu to reach the quota match, hmm, he can lose in his 2nd or 3rd match. in bottom half Bey or Olofsson will wrestle Lomadze for the bronze. Lomadze lost to Olofsson in Baku but I think that won't happen again, while I also give some chances to the American Kamal Bey , I think it comes down to Levai vs Lomadze with Levai winning the quota 87kg Bisultanov is the clear favorite, that's for sure, but there were some worrying signs today. he had a great start but got weaker and weaker in his next matches, he beat Huklek with a dubious call (still surprised why Croatian coaches didn't challenge it) he has to beat the winner of POL/ROU match (both of them are tough guys) and then Gobadze or Kessidis. Sunil Kumar is there too but I don't think he can beat 3 world medalists. I pick Bisultanov, he is one of my favorite wrestlers but I'm less confident about him than yesterday. 97kg no clear favorite, no big name, that's wide open for everybody. I think except the SUI, anybody from those 6 wrestlers can win the quota. I pick Lazogianis though. 130kg: Nabi will win the bottom half bronze , facing either the Lithuanian (I call him the tree ) or the Belarus kid. it's a shame but that match most probably ends up 1-1. it's 50/50 coin toss . I think The tree wins it ------------ if my prediction is correct, then all 18 Greco quotas go to Europe. I hope I'm wrong, some Asian wrestlers can win quota tomorrow.

both 130kg semifinals ended up 1-1 with both guys trying to be extremely passive in the first period creating some very ugly minutes of wrestling even a 10years old kid can understand this needs to change Russia and Egypt still have a chance to make their team full tomorrow. AZE will finish with 5 quotas. Iran is still the only country with full Greco team.

I have to give credit to Rafiq Huseynov for winning the quota. he won 4 hard matches at this old age to do so. and that was my prediction too but he had some helps from the refs in all 4 matches, some small helps and some big big helps like the India match, to me Sunil Kumar clearly got robbed in the last second. Sunil also got robbed in Asian Qualifiers against Berdimuratov. poor guy

so ... Aik Mnatsakanian won the quota without doing much offensively. with just good defense he won his first match against a weak opponent by just a gut wrench but from then in his next 3 matches he was intentionally passive early to receive the first caution to eventually win the match 1-1. yeah that worked for him 3 times. I can't blame the wrestlers for taking advantage of shitty rules. it's unbelievable they are not fixing this after 3-4 years. lots of matches finished 1-1 today.

my take on what happened so far we had lots of surprises as expected. but I'm mostly impressed with that Belarus kid at 130kg. he is a 97kg but has to wrestle here because they already won the 97kg quota. and boy he is World Junior and World U23 Champion for a reason, even against guys 20-30 kg heavier than himself. Nakazato of Japan also surprised me a lot. he beat 3 strong European wrestlers to give himself a chance. The Ukrainian at 97kg fought his heart out against the beast Sargsian, really unlucky to lose the match on criteria by bogus cautions. disastrous day for Hungary, Szoke was unlucky but Vancza and Levai simply didn't take advantage of their favorable draw. both Turkish wrestlers got eliminated early. terrible day for the host. CUB and EGY had 5 quotas already, their last wrestler lost here but still can have a repechage chance. so far AZE, RUS and GEO are doing better. they suffered defeats but they will be happy with 3 in the SF.

Semifinals (Quota matches) 60: vs / vs 67: vs / vs 77: vs / vs 87: vs / vs 97: vs / vs 130: vs / vs

I see, I wouldn't do that myself but maybe that's a smart strategy and the Polish team is doing good so far. even that 87kg defeat was just a momentary mistake from Kulynycz. there are 3 quotas available here + some of the favorites are tired from the previous events. which means maybe there is a better chance here.

it will be really hard if Bisultanov reaches the SF. he looked great in his first match and I think he is not losing today, but we will see

Kulynycz wasted a big chance to beat the top seed Maskevich I might be wrong but it feels like this is Poland A team and that team in Baku was the B team ! risky strategy but I think it works at least for a couple of them

he wrestled for something like 2 minutes and he was literally dead !! yeah physical condition plays a big big rule here in this last chance tournament, Selcuk Can also lost which is a big surprise but he is a 72kg wrestler, obviously couldn't cut weight twice in a month, he was very poor here this tournament is more unpredictable than any other wrestling tournament.

Conyedo never did anything special since his move to 125kg. I know he is an Olympic medalist but his recent results aren't any good. Baran on the other hand didn't wrestle in Euro qualifier. which means he is more fresh. Baran is the favorite IMO but of course Conyedo has his chances too. Valiev won the Russian nationals in 2023 but I can't remember if he wrestled anywhere after that. he was supposed to make his debut for Albania few months ago but for some reasons (injury or paperwork) it didn't happened. he won the World U23 title 3 years ago so technically he wouldn't be allowed to wrestle for another country. but looks like they paid the right guy in IOC to get an exemption for him

3 quotas here ? unless you have a very good women's team, I absolutely don't think so. even 1 male quota is hard to achieve for France. even though I hope to see host nation being represented by more than couple of wrestlers in the games. that's good for the sport Magamadov is very good but he received a very hard draw. still possible but will be very hard

in Greco any solid wrestler can beat a favorite and I consider both of them as solid wrestlers. Marcel's first round looks OK, but then from the 2nd round he has to beat guys slightly better than himself. that's not impossible but he needs a bit of luck too Tryone (97) had a good chance in Baku but lost it narrowly . this time it will be harder, I think he wins the 1st round. but like his brother from then he has to beat tough guys. so I don't think they qualify but I won't be very surprised if they do.