Wrestling starts at Rio in less than a week. Everything you need to know about the event is right here!
By Mister Spey @JaroslavWrestle
Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports
The world’s oldest and greatest sport will soon begin competition at the Rio Olympics. 68 nations will send 350 of their toughest athletes to the Olympic Training Center’s Hall 3, to compete in the 2016 Summer Games. Bookmark this page and use it as your guide to the tournaments.
WHO IS WRESTLING
The 350 wrestlers will be divided into 3 styles: Greco-Roman (Men’s only) and Men’s & Women’s Freestyle. Each style is broken into six weight divisions. A maximum of 1 wrestler per country per weight division is allowed, and there are between 18-21 wrestlers per division.
Wrestlers are randomly drawn into brackets for a single elimination tournament. Wrestlers who lose to finalists can wrestler back for the bronze, of which there are two, one for each side of the bracket (and set of finalist-losers).
Here’s everything you need to know about Team USA, and a whole lot more about the Games.
And here is a link to a listing every wrestler that will be competing (baring any last minute scratches).
The easily navigable Wikipedia page regarding the Olympic qualification process can be found here.
And a nifty global heat map by total number of qualifier can be seen below:
Russia leads the world with 17 wrestlers at Rio. Azerbaijan, Turkey, and the US of A are tied for 2nd with 14 competitors a piece.
WHAT ABOUT THE RUSSIANS AND PEDS?
We will skip the sordid details, of which there are innumerable, and just let you know that it doesn’t look like the PED scandal will have any affect on the wrestling competitions. Any wrestling related PED issues will have to be resolved at some other time (or, y’know, maybe never).
WHEN IT IS ON
Greco-Roman
Sunday, Aug 14: 59kg, 75kg; Monday Aug 15: 85kg, 130kg; Tuesday Aug 16: 66kg, 98kg
All days: 9:00 am EST tournament start; 4:00 pm EST for start of medal matches
Women’s Freestyle
Wednesday, Aug 17: 48kg, 58kg, 69kg; Thursday Aug 18: 53kg, 63kg, 75kg
All days: 9:00 am EST tournament start; 3:45 pm EST for start of medal matches
Men’s Freestyle
Friday Aug 19: 57kg 74kg; Saturday Aug 20: 86kg, 125kg
9:00 am EST tournament start; 4:00 pm EST for start of medal matches
Sunday Aug 21: 66kg, 97kg
7:30 am EST tournament start; 11:45 am EST for start of medal matches
HOW TO WATCH
CNBC will be showing the prelims and NBCSN will be showing the medal rounds. To make sure you are able to catch all the action, NBC will be streaming everything on their website (nbcsports.com/olympic-sports) and NBC Sports app.
Unfortunately for cord cutters, you must have a cable subscription to watch online, so if you want to see more than a few ‘in-studio’ highlights, you’re going to have to either become reacquainted with your cable company, or, if you have high speed internet and a Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, XBox One et al, you can give Sling TV a try. I’ve used it before, and it’s not great, but it’s (probably) better than dealing with the cable company.
I’ve also heard PSP Vue has similar functionality.
United World Wrestling will be hosting results and replays (but full replays will probably not be available for at least little while, until NBC grants their release).
If you live in countries other than the USA, please share in the comments what you plan on doing, because I have no idea (although I’m told this UWW link may help).
PREVIEWS
We’ll have previews for each day of competition here on the Bloody Elbow, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, we’ve compiled a few from other sources. If you know of previews we’ve omitted, let us know in the comments!
The Open Mat has a plethora of articles in their international section
Flo Wrestling has a special section devoted to the Olympic Games chock full of goodness
If mainstream media is your thing, there’s also Sports Illustrated
What did we miss?
RANKINGS
UWW releases Top 20 rankings for each weight class. Many of the ranked wrestlers will be battling on the mats in Rio. The rankings are far from perfect, but in any event, I matched up all the entrants to their corresponding ranking and listed them below, in order.
GRECO-ROMAN
59 KG/130 LBS
CUB Ismael BORRERO 1
AZE Rovshan BAYRAMOV 2
KAZ Almat KEBISPAYEV 3
PRK Won-Chol YUN 5
BLR Soslan DAUROV 6
KGZ Arsen ERALIEV 7
NOR Stig-Andre BERGE 8
UZB Elmurat TASMURADOV 9
EGY Haithem MAHMOUD 10
JPN Shinobu OTA 12
IRI Hamid SORYAN 14
RUS Stepan MARYANYAN 15
ECU Andres MONTANO 16
SRB Kristian FRIS 18
USA Jesse THIELKE 19
CHN Lumin WANG
KOR Jungbaik LEE
MAR El-Mahadi MESSAOUDI
VEN Raiber RODRIGUEZ
66 KG/146 LBS
GER Frank STAEBLER 1
HUN Tamas LORINCZ 2
KOR Hansu RYU 3
RUS Islam-Beka ALBIEV 4
SRB Davor STEFANEK 6
ARM Migran ARUTYUNYAN 8
CUB Miguel MARTINEZ 9
GEO Shmagi BOLKVADZE 10
ALG Tarek BENAISSA 11
ROU Ion PANAIT 14
LTU Edgaras VENCKAITIS 16
IRI Omid NOROOZI 18
AZE Rasul CHUNAYEV
EGY Adham KAHK
FIN Tero VAELIMAEKI
JPN Tomohiro INOUE
KGZ Ruslan TSAREV
NZL Craig MILLER
VEN Alexander TORRES
75 KG/165 LBS
RUS Roman VLASOV 1
KAZ Doszhan KARTIKOV 2
DEN Mark MADSEN 3
KOR Hyeonwoo KIM 4
USA Andrew BISEK 5
GEO Zurabi DATUNASHVILI 6
SRB Viktor NEMES 7
HUN Peter BACSI 8
ARM Arsen JULFALAKYAN 9
IRI Saeid ABDVALI 10
CHN Bin YANG 11
AZE Elvin MURSALIYEV 13
CRO Bozo STARCEVIC 17
MAR Zied AIT-OUAGRAM 18
EGY Mahmoud SEBIE 20
BUL Daniel ALEKSANDROV
COL Carlos MUNOZ
CUB Yurisandy HERNANDEZ
TUR Selcuk CEBI
UZB Dilshodjon TURDIEV
85 KG/187 LBS
UKR Zhan BELENIUK 1
HUN Viktor LORINCZ 2
RUS Davit CHAKVETADZE 3
UZB Rustam ASSAKALOV 4
AZE Saman TAHMASEBI 5
GER Denis KUDLA 6
GEO Roberti KOBLIASHVILI 8
IRI Habibollah AKHLAGHI 9
BLR Javid HAMZATAU 13
BUL Nikolay BAYRYAKOV 14
ARM Maksim MANUKYAN 16
SWE Kristoffer BERG 19
EGY Ahmed SAAD 20
ALG Adem BOUDJEMLINE
AUT Amer HRUSTANOVIC
CHN Fei PENG
FIN Rami HIETANIEMI
IND Ravinder KHATRI
KGZ Zhanarbek KENZHEEV
MEX Alfonso LEYVA
USA Benjamin PROVISOR
98 KG/216 LBS
ARM Artur ALEKSANYAN 2
IRI Ghasem REZAEI 3
RUS Islam MAGOMEDOV 4
TUR Cenk ILDEM 6
CUB Yasmany LUGO 8
UKR Dimitriy TIMCHENKO 9
ITA Daigoro TIMONCINI 10
CHN Di XIAO 11
BLR Tsimafei DZEINICHENKA 14
HUN Balazs KISS 15
EST Ardo ARUSAAR 16
SWE Carl SCHOEN 17
ROU Alin ALEXUC-CIURARIU 19
VEN Luillys PEREZ 20
ALG Hemza HALOUI
BUL Elis GURI
EGY Hamdy ABDELWAHAB
GEO Revazi NADAREISHVILI
IND Hardeep HARDEEP
130 KG/287 LBS
TUR Riza KAYAALP 1
CUB Mijain LOPEZ 2
UKR Oleksandr CHERNETSKYY 3
GER Eduard POPP 4
SWE Johan EUREN 5
RUS Sergey SEMENOV 6
KAZ Nurmakhan TINALIYEV 9
EST Heiki NABI 12
CHN Qiang MENG 13
IRI Bashir BABAJANZADEH-DARZI 14
AZE Sabah SHARIATI 15
KGZ Murat RAMONOV 16
UZB Muminjon ABDULLAEV 18
BRA Eduard SOGHOMONYAN 20
AUS Ivan POPOV
EGY Abdellatif MOHAMED
GEO Iakobi KAJAIA
USA Robert SMITH
VEN Erwin CARABALLO
MENS FREESTYLE
57 KG/126 LBS
GEO Vladimer KHINCHEGASHVILI 1
IRI Hassan RAHIMI 2
CUB Yowlys BONNE 3
MGL Bekhbayar ERDENEBAT 4
RUS Vikto LEBEDEV 7
KAZ Nurislam SANAYEV 8
JPN Rei HIGUCHI 10
IND Sandeep TOMAR 11
TUR Suleyman ATLI 13
USA Daniel DENNIS 15
ROU Ivan GUIDEA 16
ARM Garnik MNATSAKANYAN 18
SEN Adama DIATTA 19
UZB Abbos RAKHMONOV 20
AZE Haji ALIYEV
BLR Asadulla LACHINAU
BUL Vladimir DUBOV
KOR Junsik YUN
MAR Chakir ANSARI
PRK Kyong-Il YANG
65 KG/143 LBS
ITA Frank CHAMIZO 1
RUS Soslan RAMONOV 2
AZE Toghrul ASGAROV 3
IRI Meisam NASIRI 6
UZB Ikhtiyor NAVRUZOV 7
BUL Borislav NOVACHKOV 8
MGL Mandakhnaran GANZORIG 9
PUR Franklin GOMEZ 10
CUB Alejandro VALDES 11
IND Yogeshwar DUTT 12
USA Frank MOLINARO 13
GEO Zurabi IAKOBISHVILI 14
CHN Katai YEERLANBIEKE 15
ARM Devid SAFARYAN 17
TUR Mustafa KAYA 20
AUS Sahit PRIZRENI
BRN Adam BATIROV
CAN Haislan GARCIA
NGR Amas DANIEL
POL Magomedmurad GADZHIEV
UKR Andriy KVYATKOVSKYY
74 KG/163 LBS
USA Jordan BURROUGHS 1
RUS Aniuar GEDUEV 2
MGL Unurbat PUREVJAV 3
IRI Hassan YAZDANICHARATI 4
CUB Livan LOPEZ 5
TUR Soner DEMIRTAS 7
AZE Jabrayil HASANOV 8
IND Narsingh YADAV 9
UZB Bekzod ABDURAKHMONOV 10
FRA Zelimkhan KHADJIEV 11
GEO Jakob MAKARASHVILI 12
JPN Sohsuke TAKATANI 14
MDA Evgheni NEDEALCO 17
ESP Taimuraz FRIEV 19
BUL Georgi IVANOV 20
AUS Talgat ILYASOV
COL Carlos IZQUIERDO
GBS Augusto MIDANA
HAI Asnage CASTELLY
KAZ Galymzhan USSERBAYEV
86 KG/190 LBS
RUS Abdulrashid SADULAEV 1
CUB Reineris SALAS 2
TUR Selim YASAR 4
MGL Uitumen ORGODOL 6
USA J’den COX 9
GEO Sandro AMINASHVILI 10
IRI Alireza KARIMI 13
POL Zbigniew BARANOWSKI 14
AZE Sharif SHARIFOV 15
HUN Istvan VEREB 16
BLR Amarhajy MAHAMEDAU 17
KAZ Aslan KAKHIDZE 18
CHN Shengfeng BI 19
KOR Gwanuk KIM 20
BUL Mihail GANEV
EGY Mohamed MOHAMED
PUR Jamie ESPINAL
TUN Mohamed SAADAOUI
VEN Pedro CEBALLOS
97 KG/214 LBS
RUS Anzor BOLTUKAEV 1
AZE Khetag GAZYUMOV 3
USA Kyle SNYDER 4
GEO Elizbar ODIKADZE 6
POL Radoslaw BARAN 7
UKR Valerii ANDRIITSEV 8
IRI Reza YAZDANI 10
MDA Nicolai CEBAN 11
ARM Georgii KETOEV 12
MGL Khuderbulga DORJKHAND 13
TUR Ibrahim BOLUKBASI 14
ROU Albert SARITOV 15
KAZ Mamed IBRAGIMOV 16
KGZ Magomed MUSAEV 17
VEN Jose DIAZ 18
CUB Javier CORTINA 19
GBS Bedopassa BUASSAT DJONDE
NGR Soso TAMARAU
UZB Magomed IBRAGIMOV
125 KG/276 LBS
GEO Geno PETRIASHVILI 1
RUS Bilyal MAKHOV 2
TUR Taha AKGUL 4
AZE Jamaladdin MAGOMEDOV 5
IRI Komeil GHASEMI 6
CHN Zhiwei DENG 7
ARM Levan BERIANIDZE 8
KAZ Daulet SHABANBAY 9
MGL Chuluunbat JARGALSAIKHAN 10
POL Robert BARAN 11
HUN Daniel LIGETI 12
USA Tervel DLAGNEV 14
KGZ Aiaal LAZAREV 17
EGY Diaaeldin ABDELMOTTALEB 20
BLR Ibrahim SAIDAU
BUL Dimitar KUMCHEV
CAN Korey JARVIS
PLW Florian TEMENGIL
TUN Radhouane CHEBBI
UKR Alen ZASIEIEV
WOMENS FREESTYLE
48 KG/106 LBS
Mariya STADNIK AZE 1
Yanan SUN CHN 2
Eri TOSAKA JPN 3
Zhuldyz ESHIMOVA KAZ 4
Patricia BERMUDEZ ARG 6
Emilia VUC ROU 7
Elitsa YANKOVA BUL 8
Carolina CASTILLO COL 9
Jasmine MIAN CAN 10
Jessica BLASZKA NED 12
HyonGyong KIM PRK 13
Vinesh VINESH IND 14
Haley AUGELLO USA 17
Thi VU VIE 19
Rebecca MUAMBO CMR 20
Sotheara CHOV CAM
Brenda BAILEY HON
Miesinnei GENESIS NGR
Iwona MATKOWSKA POL
Milana DADASHEVA RUS
53 KG/117 LBS
Saori YOSHIDA JPN 1
Sofia MATTSON SWE 2
Odunayo ADEKUOROYE NGR 3
Xuechun ZHONG CHN 4
MyongSuk JONG PRK 5
Nina HEMMER GER 6
Yuliia KHAVALDZHY-BLAHINYA UKR 8
Betzabeth ARGUELLO VEN 9
Katarzyna KRAWCZYK POL 10
Bediha GUN TUR 11
Maria PREVOLARAKI GRE 15
Isabelle SAMBOU SEN 17
Jillian GALLAYS CAN 18
Thi NGUYEN VIE 19
Natalya SINISHIN AZE
Joseph ESSOMBE-TIAKO CMR
Kumari BABITA IND
Sumiya ERDENECHIMEG MGL
Helen MAROULIS USA
58 KG/128 LBS
Kaori ICHO JPN 1
Valeriia KOBLOVA-ZHOLOBOVA RUS 2
Malin MATTSSON SWE 3
Elif YESILIRMAK TUR 4
Jackeline RENTERIA COL 5
Aisuluu TYNYBEKOVA KGZ 6
Orkhon PUREVDORJ MGL 7
Yuliya RATKEVICH AZE 8
Mimi HRISTOVA BUL 10
Luisa NIEMESCH GER 11
Marwa AMRI TUN 12
Aminat ADENIYI NGR 13
Michelle FAZZARI CAN 16
Mariana CHERDIVARA-ESANU MDA 17
Lissette ANTES ECU 18
Joice SOUZA-DASILVA BRA 20
Oksana HERHEL UKR
Petra OLLI FIN
Sakshi MALIK IND
Yanet SOVERO PER
63 KG/139 LBS
Yuliia TKACH-OSTAPCHUK UKR 1
Battsetseg SORONZONBOLD MGL 2
Risako KAWAI JPN 3
Maryia MAMASHUK BLR 4
Anastasija GRIGORJEVA LAT 5
Danielle LAPPAGE CAN 6
Rui XU CHN 7
Taybe YUSEIN BUL 8
Blessing OBORUDUDU NGR 9
Marianna SASTIN HUN 10
Hafize SAHIN TUR 11
Inna TRAZHUKOVA RUS 12
Yekaterina LARIONOVA KAZ 13
Henna JOHANSSON SWE 14
Lais NUNES-DEOLIVEIRA BRA 16
Monika MICHALIK POL 18
Adela HANZLICKOVA CZE
Hela RIABI TUN
Elena PIROZHKOVA USA
69 KG/152 LBS
Feng ZHOU CHN 1
Aline FOCKEN GER 2
Anna FRANSSON SWE 3
Natalia VOROBEVA RUS 4
Sara DOSHO JPN 5
Buse TOSUN TUR 6
Alina STADNIK-MAKHYNIA UKR 7
Agnieszka WIESZCZEK-KORDUS POL 8
Elmira SYZDYKOVA KAZ 9
Ilana KRATYSH ISR 10
Dorothy YEATS CAN 12
Nasanburmaa OCHIRBAT MGL 13
Maria ACOSTA VEN 16
Signe STORE NOR 17
Gilda DEOLIVEIRA BRA
Enas AHMED EGY
Hannah RUEBEN NGR
Wen-Ling CHEN TPE
75 KG/165 LBS
Adeline GRAY USA 1
Erica WIEBE CAN 2
Vasilisa MARZALIUK BLR 3
Aline DASILVA-FERREIRA BRA 4
Ekaterina BUKINA RUS 5
Yasemin ADAR TUR 6
Andrea OLAYA COL 7
Epp MAE EST 8
Alla CHERKASOVA UKR 9
Cynthia VESCAN FRA 10
Fengliu ZHANG CHN 11
Zsanett NEMETH HUN 12
Guzel MANYUROVA KAZ 14
Maria SELMAIER GER 15
Jarimit WEFFER VEN 16
Rio WATARI JPN 19
Annabe ALI CMR
Samar HAMZA EGY
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