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Discussion Topic: 2008 USA Olympic Greco-Roman Updates
Dan Ransick added to this discussion on August 11, 2008
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Spenser Mango advances to the quarterfinals after defeating his opponent Virgil Menteanu (Romania) 6-3, 3-1.
Mango will wrestle the 2007 World Championships silver medalist Park (South Korea) in the quarterfinals.
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Discussion Topic: 2008 USA Olympic Greco-Roman Updates
Jim Wagnild added to this discussion on August 11, 2008
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Discussion Topic: 2008 USA Olympic Greco-Roman Updates
Dan Ransick added to this discussion on August 11, 2008
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Mango loses to Park in 2 periods. Park is an absolute monster in Greco and Mango had no answer for him at all in the match. Park needs to win for Mango to advance with these crazy carry rules that they use.
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Discussion Topic: 2008 USA Olympic Greco-Roman Updates
Dan Cosimi added to this discussion on August 12, 2008
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Spenser Mango finished in 8th place at 55 kilograms / 121 pounds.
Joe Betterman did not compete because the USA did not qualify at 60 kilograms / 132 pounds.
Jake Deitchler's draw is out.
- After receiving a bye, he will face world silver medalist Kanatbek Begaliev (Kyrgyzstan).
- If he wins that, he will likely face the defending Olympic gold medalist and world champion, Farid Mansurov (Azerbaijan).
- If he wins that, he will likely face one of these three: an Olympic silver medalist from Turkey, a world champion from Bulgaria, or a world bronze medalist from Russia.
- If he wins that, he's in the championship match.
T.C. Dantzler's draw is out.
- In the first round, he will face European champion and Peter Bacsi (Hungary), who finished in 7th place at the World Championships last year.
- If he wins that, he will likely face world champion Volodym Shatskym (Ukraine).
- If he wins that, he will likely face world silver medalist Mark Madsen (Denmark).
- If he wins that, he will likely face world bronze medalist Christophe Guenot (France).
- If he wins that, he's in the championship match.
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Discussion Topic: 2008 USA Olympic Greco-Roman Updates
Dan Ransick added to this discussion on August 12, 2008
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Both Deitchler and Dantzler lose their first match. They now need their wrestlers they lost to, make the finals now in order to carry on.
Deitchler lost a close 2nd period giving up 3 points in the last 10 seconds when he was leading 3-0. Deitchler got a turn from top but then gave up a takedown and a quick gut wrench to lose 3-3. USA just coming out flat in Greco. They now stand 1-3 in the Olympics a far cry from last years world championship run.
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Discussion Topic: 2008 USA Olympic Greco-Roman Updates
Hank Kornblut added to this discussion on August 12, 2008
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Last year's world championship squad featured Joe Warren, Harry Lester, Justin Ruiz and Lindsay Durlacher.
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Discussion Topic: 2008 USA Olympic Greco-Roman Updates
Al McIntosh added to this discussion on August 13, 2008
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I think USA Wrestling needs to "tweak" their qualifying system just a little bit. I say "a little bit" because overall I feel it us a solid system. Obviously I'm a big fan of Harry Lester. He's a total class act. Deitchler won fair and square. Harry, in all of his post match interviews, offered no excuses and stated his opponent wrestled a good match, end of story. However the reason why I am saying they need to "tweak" the qualifying system is because you want to be absolutely sure you have the best wrestler representing the USA at the Olympics. Russia, the most dominant wrestling program in the world, factors in their national championship results, but not exclusively. The coaches hold a trump card. Basically Russia has a national tournament only. Their national championship and their olympic trials are one in the same. 99% of the time the winner represents their county at the Worlds or Olympics. However their coaches do reserve the right to select a wrestler who doesn't win their national championship if they feel they will do better at the Worlds.
Before people go crazy on me, I'm not suggesting the U.S. adopt the Russians' Olympic team selection process, but I do think we need to seriously look at the "seeding" process. Harry was seeded third based on the fact that he didn't wrestle at the U.S. Nationals. In essense you give the #1 seed to a wrestler who has never made a world team because he won the U.S. Nationals. In short at the Olympic Trials the tournament which is supposed to determine the best wrestler with the best shot at winning an Olympic medal, we have a seeding system that penalizes you if you don't compete in the U.S. Nationals and in the Harry's case, doesn't allow a reigning World medalist (many who felt he was the best in the U.S. Greco-Roman wrestler on the squad, period) who, by rule, cannot be seeded higher than third. Believe me I understand the rationale, we put a lot of stock in our national tournament. However a two-time World medalist should have already earned the right to be seeded #1 and automatically qualified for a best-of-three wrestle-off. As I already stated, Harry is a class act and has never, not once, made an excuse for his loss and has been quick to congratulate Deitchler. However you can't tell me that Coach Fraser felt as confident in Deitcher's chances of medaling over Lester's. let's face it, everyone has a bad match. The year Cael Sanderson won a gold, he lost his first match in the best-of-three wrestle off to Lee Fullhart in the Trials. Sanderson rebounded from his one bad match and won two straight to make the team and went on to win gold. What is interesting is that this year Nate Gallick skipped the U.S. Nationals so he could train for an international tournament in order to attempt to qualify the 60 kg weight class. Mike Zadick had 4 opportunities to qualify the weight class for the Olympics and came up short each time. USA Wrestling determined that if Gallick was able to qualify the weight class for the Olympics he would automatically advance to the best-of-three in the trials even though he didn't wrestle at the U.S. Nationals. Keep in mind, Gallick has never made a World team, let alone placed at a senior level World championship, and yet USA Wrestling made this provision for him. Harry not only qualified the U.S. at 66 kg for the Olympics, Harry is a reigning World medalist and placed the last two years in a row at the World Championships. Harry was seeded 3rd and the worst imaginable situation occured, he had one bad match. No way a wrestler like Lester loses two out of three times, no way. In fact, let's face it, Lester beats Deitchler 9 out of 10 and everyone on the U.S. team knows it.
Again, no excuses for the one bad match, that's not my point. I'm talking about seeding only. Bottom line, I think the current qualifying system is 99% solid. However I think the U.S. needs to "tweak" it just a bit. One modest suggestion: how about giving a reigning World Medalist, and the person who qualified the weight for the Olympic games the #1 seed at the U.S. Olympic Trials. I think they earned at least that.
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Discussion Topic: 2008 USA Olympic Greco-Roman Updates
Hank Kornblut added to this discussion on August 13, 2008
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Al: Good point about the seeding. It's the least we can do.
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Discussion Topic: 2008 USA Olympic Greco-Roman Updates
Joe Boardwine added to this discussion on August 13, 2008
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I agree. Obviously I am a little biased on Harry's side.
But it's like watching someone lose a wrestle-off in a freak incident with the winner knowing they are going to get their clock cleaned at the big weekend tournament coming up.
On the other hand, and I know Harry feels this way, no excuses - it was amazing the way Deitchler wrestled. And our sport is a crazy sport like that, where, a 20-30 second flurry can eliminate the fact that you were better than everyone in our country for the past 3 years.
I am sure Coach Fraser would love to have Harry on his team - no disrespect to Deitchler.
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Discussion Topic: 2008 USA Olympic Greco-Roman Updates
Dan Cosimi added to this discussion on August 13, 2008
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I absolutely agree that a reigning World medalist should be given the #1 seed. I also agree that we should tweak the criteria for seeding to not put so much of an emphasis on Nationals. Then again, if we want Nationals to really matter that much, why doesn't USA Wrestling use that competition as our Olympic or World Team Trials?
Even though I agree that the seeding was wrong, it wouldn't necessarily help someone with the #1 seed.
Deitchler could easily have been on the other side of the bracket, waiting for a #1 seeded Lester instead of a #3 seeded Lester. For example: Hrovat pinned #1 and big favorite Mo Lawal a few years ago and cost him a trip to the World championships, or Casey Cunningham upsetting reigning world bronze medalist Donnie Pritzlaff in the World Team Trials in 2007 and then beating him again this year - both before the finals.
I don't know how it should happen but we should get our absolute best to represent our country. In this case, our best is not Deitchler, it is Lester. I think the same goes with Ruiz, who will be watching as Wheeler competes in the spot in Beijing. Ruiz has infinitely better credentials including multiple U.S. National Championships, multiple wins at international tournaments, and a World silver medal.
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Discussion Topic: 2008 USA Olympic Greco-Roman Updates
Dan Cosimi added to this discussion on August 13, 2008
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Then again, Deitchler did compete very well in losing only 1-1, 1-3, 1-1 to the Olympic bronze medalist...
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Discussion Topic: 2008 USA Olympic Greco-Roman Updates
Jack Muni added to this discussion on August 13, 2008
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In fairness to Deitchler I thought they could have called the "touch fall" on that reversal of his in his second match. It was real close from what I saw. It would have thrown him into the bronze medal match if they call the pin. But like the rest of you guys, I couldn't help but think Harry would have done better than the kid with all his international experience. Woulda, coulda, shoulda...
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Discussion Topic: 2008 USA Olympic Greco-Roman Updates
Al McIntosh added to this discussion on August 13, 2008
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Just to clarify. What I meant by saying that a reigning World medalist who also qualified the weight for the Olympics in an Olympic year should deserve at the very least the number #1 seed at the Olympic Trials, I meant an auto bid into the best two out of three in the trial finals. Not the number 1 seed in the mini-tournament.
Basically my feeling is if you medal top 3 in the World and qualify the weight for the Olympics, I think that means a heck of a lot more than a national championship.
A two out of three wrestle off is to ensure that your top guy could have one bad match, and still win a spot by winning the remaining two bouts. Again the Cael Sanderson 2004 Trial finals underscores this.
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Discussion Topic: 2008 USA Olympic Greco-Roman Updates
Dan Ransick added to this discussion on August 13, 2008
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I am often baffled at how USA Wrestling runs thing in terms of the qualifying for the World and Olympic teams. I think they place way to much emphasis on Nationals. The tournament is an open in reality meaning that if for some reason I wanted to compete there I could.
I think the criteria should be that if you are a returning world medalist you should automatically get the #1 seed or even get a by to the finals. Lester represented USA's best chance of a gold medal.
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Discussion Topic: 2008 USA Olympic Greco-Roman Updates
Dan Cosimi added to this discussion on August 13, 2008
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I don't mind them putting emphasis on the National Championships... I mean, it's the National Championships... but why have two of them???
Part 1 = U.S. National Tournament
Part 2 = Olympic or World Team Qualifying Tournament
Wouldn't it make sense to just have one?
Just my $0.02...
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