Rio 2016: Olympic Wrestling Preview Day 1 – Greco-Roman 59kg & 75kg

By Mister Spey @JaroslavWrestle

We’ll begin this preview of Day 1 as we will all future previews, with a link back to our Olympics Wrestling primer which as a cheat sheet and live stream details.

Also a note about the wrestling brackets. As with most other head-to-head competitions at the Olympics, there are no seeds in wrestling. The entire pool of competitors in each weight class receive a random draw into a single elimination bracket.

Wrestling brackets are also uneven, so all the “pigtails” go on the bottom half of the bracket. For instance, in a 20 wrestler bracket, which we will see at the Olympics, 8 wrestlers will be on the top half of the bracket, and 12 on the bottom.

You can check out the brackets from the 2015 World Championship and the European Olympic Qualification Tournament to give you a better idea of what the Rio brackets will look like.

All to the point that picking place finishers before the weigh-ins are completed and brackets are released (which happens the day before the tournament) is a fool’s errand. Which is perhaps why I find it so much fun.

Greco-Roman 59kg

PICKS

GOLD: Hamid Soryan IRI

SILVER: Rovshan Bayramov AZE

BRONZE: Yun Won-chol PRK

BRONZE: Elmurat Tasmuradov UZB

CONTENDERS

The Rio Olympics kick things off with a great weight class. Iran’s 7X world champ and reigning Olympic Champ, Hamid Soryan, will be looking to cement his status as an all time great. Bayramov also has hardware from London as well as Bejing. Yun is a 2013 world champ and Tasmuradov has two world bronze medals to his name.

OTHERS OF NOTE

American Jesse Thielke Smooth is a few years removed from his world bronze he won at the junior level but he’s improved immensely over the last year and will be looking to make his mark on the senior level at Rio. Norway’s Stig Berge won bronze at the 2014 worlds, so a Rio medal is not out of the question. Plus my grandmother would be disappointed in me if I didn’t say something nice about the lone Norwegian Olympian. Cuba’s Ismael Borrero won the 2015 World Championship but many experts see a repeat, or even a medal, as an unlikely scenario.

RANKINGS

1 CUB Ismael BORRERO

2 AZE Rovshan BAYRAMOV

3 KAZ Almat KEBISPAYEV

5 PRK Won-Chol YUN

6 BLR Soslan DAUROV

7 KGZ Arsen ERALIEV

8 NOR Stig-Andre BERGE

9 UZB Elmurat TASMURADOV

10 EGY Haithem MAHMOUD

12 JPN Shinobu OTA

14 IRI Hamid SORYAN

15 RUS Stepan MARYANYAN

16 ECU Andres MONTANO

18 SRB Kristian FRIS

19 USA Jesse THIELKE

CHN Lumin WANG

KOR Jungbaik LEE

MAR El-Mahadi MESSAOUDI

VEN Raiber RODRIGUEZ

Greco-Roman 75kg

PICKS

GOLD: Kim Hyeon-woo KOR

SILVER: Roman Vlasov RUS

BRONZE: Andy Bisek U! S! A!

BRONZE: Arsen Julfalakyan ARM

CONTENDERS

Vlasov is the reigning world champ and the favorite going into the tournament, but Kim is a savvy vet that has given Vlasov all he could handle in previous meetings. Julfalkakyan is a former world champ and Bisek is the only 75 kilo competitor to medal in the past two world championships (he has two bronze medals).

OTHERS OF NOTE

This weight class is wide open, so don’t be surprised if someone comes out of nowhere to make the podium. Like Bozo Starcevic from Croatia. I’ve never heard of him before but with a name like that, you better believe he’s going to be one tough hombre.

RANKINGS

1 RUS Roman VLASOV

2 KAZ Doszhan KARTIKOV

3 DEN Mark MADSEN

4 KOR Hyeonwoo KIM

5 USA Andrew BISEK

6 GEO Zurabi DATUNASHVILI

7 SRB Viktor NEMES

8 HUN Peter BACSI

9 ARM Arsen JULFALAKYAN

10 IRI Saeid ABDVALI

11 CHN Bin YANG

13 AZE Elvin MURSALIYEV

17 CRO Bozo STARCEVIC

18 MAR Zied AIT-OUAGRAM

20 EGY Mahmoud SEBIE

BUL Daniel ALEKSANDROV

COL Carlos MUNOZ

CUB Yurisandy HERNANDEZ

TUR Selcuk CEBI

UZB Dilshodjon TURDIEV