to lower the costs, UWW is having Continental Championships just one weak before the Olympic qualifiers. except for Europe of course. people in Europe always cared a lot about the European Champs.
while I do understand their reasons but they could have done it another way, but they made a mess, and ruined the prestige of continental championships. what's the point of having them in the olympic year, just to fill up the calendar ?
per rules. countries have to participate in Continental Championships to become eligible to participate in the OG qualifier with the same number of wrestlers. they don't necessarily have to send the same guys, but most countries don't have enough budget to send two different teams for the Continental Champs and the qualifier. so it's mostly the same team for two events.
this led to something very weird and interesting tonight, Yasmani Acosta from Chile (he is Cuban) won the 130kg gold medal in Pan American Champs tonight without winning a single match and it wasn't like nobody else entered. there were 6 other guys, he had to win 3 matches to win the gold but all of them happened to be a walkover , he lost his first group match, but from there nobody else showed up on the mat to face him. he is a tough guy. can drain your energy, those wrestlers probably thought it doesn't worth wrestling him now, one week before the main event. (no idea why the final didn't happen Oscar Pino is already qualified and is not concerned about the next week event)
here is the result. "VIN" means victory by injury
https://arena.uww.org/weight-category/show/1eeb687a-ec52-6a1a-b325-370640f43f22/print/complete-results