US ladies get brutal draws

[maligned 528]

Well, our ladies will have to bring it tomorrow to qualify us for the Olympics.  We'll be slight underdogs to make it out of 4 of the 5 half-brackets and need 2 tough wins in the 5th weight.

 

48kg: Lampe should beat Honduras in the R16 before being a slight underdog against Colombia in the quarters and a slight favorite in the semi's over a very tough Peru/Cuba winner

 

53kg: Conder will be a slight favorite over former world medalist Gallays of Canada in the quarters before needing to beat Valencia Escoto of Mexico (a 3-2 match last time they met) in the semi's.

 

58kg: Ragan should win the R16 but will be an underdog against Canada's Fazzari in the quarters.

 

63kg: Clodgo draws straight into the semi's, but she faces Cuba's Vidiaux, who she lost to 11-6 at worlds.

 

69kg: Mensah will need to beat Pan Am bronze Acosta of Venezuela in the quarters before probably facing former world silver medalist Yeats of Canada in the semi's.  Yeats beat Mensah at the Farrell tournament.

[Housebuye 2,420]

Random seeds are silly

[maligned 528]

Yikes...almost a total wipeout.  Clodgo rescues some dignity by turning the tables on Vidiaux to qualify one weight for us.  All matches where I listed us as slight underdogs above ended up in losses except Clodgo's.  Plus Conder gets clobbered as the slight favorite against the Canadian.  In all, Canada takes down 3 of our girls, we get only 2 to the semi's and advance Clodgo.  An almost unimaginable scenario before the draws came out.  Even with that considered, though, still a nightmare result.

[newyorkwrestler 258]

would clarissa chun have done better?

[Jasonmitchell32 244]

Random seeds are silly

I'm ok with them if they'd expand repechage a bit to allow wrestlers to work their way back. An early loss shouldn't penalize you from a shot to come back thru. In folkstyle the wrestlebacks are some of the best stories!

[maligned 528]

Yeah, in a case like this weekend, having the opposite bracket 3rd place winner wrestle the runner-up for a true 2nd would very much be in order.  If this scenario were in play, the US ladies would have a very significant shot at 2nd place in all 4 weight classes they lost.

[Housebuye 2,420]

Yeah, in a case like this weekend, having the opposite bracket 3rd place winner wrestle the runner-up for a true 2nd would very much be in order.  If this scenario were in play, the US ladies would have a very significant shot at 2nd place in all 4 weight classes they lost.

Exactly. Any tournament that doesn't have seeds needs to have this in place. Otherwise, you may very well have the 2nd best wrestler in the tournament lose early and not qualify

[maligned 528]

We end up with two 3rd and two 5ths.  All 4 girls that beat us earlier took gold, further confirming the fact that our draws were very difficult.

 

Canada has now qualified their whole team of 6.

Brazil is up to 4 and Colombia to 3.

 

Interesting that in general women's teams doing well in wrestling are also the successful nations in high-profile women's sports.  Canada, Brazil, Sweden, Japan, China, and Germany are all nations that are not particularly strong at men's wrestling that have success in women's.  They are also highly ranked in women's soccer, for example, even though several of them are not highly rated in men's.  It seems that the nations that care enough to invest in women's sports do well across the board.