Day 2 Olympic Recap
85 kg: Going into today, it looked as if David Chakvetadze had an absolutely brutal draw, but as the day went on, we found out one thing about him: he is a bad, bad man that does not care one bit about his draw. In his opening match he downed five-time World medalist Saman Tahmasebi of Azerbaijan. Soon after that he defeated No.9 Habibollah Akhlaghi of Iran by a score of 9-4. After steam rolling No.7 Denis Kudla of Germany by a score of 9-0, Chakvetadze hammered No.5 Viktor Loerincz of Hungary. Chakvetadze then capped off his incredible run by blowing out 2015 World champion Zhan Beleniuk by a score of 9-2 to take home the gold. In my preview, I talked about how much potential Chakvetadze has and today he showed every bit of it. In the first third place match, Javid Hamzatau of Belarus topped Nikolay Nikolaev Bayryakov of Bulgaria by a score of 4-1. Hamzatau took advantage of a soft top half of the bracket as he controlled in every match that he won today. In the second third place match, Denis Kudla defeated Viktor Loerincz by a score of 3-3. The young German battled his way through the bottom half of the bracket and benefited from some fortunate calls on his way to taking the bronze.
130 kg: Have you ever watched an athlete that you couldn't take your eyes of when he was competing because you knew it was greatness in the making? This is how I feel when I watch Mijain Lopez. All day long, Lopez looked like a man that was possessed. He rattled off 4 straight convincing victories, including a 6-0 win over 2015 World champion Rez Kayaalp of Turkey, on his way to claiming his 3rd Olympic gold medal. To top it off, Lopez did not give up one single point throughout the tournament. In the end, it was Lopez's bracket, everyone else just happened to be wrestling in it. In the first third place match, Sabah Shariati of Azerbaijan pinned Eduard Popp of Germany. After taking fifth in Las Vegas last year, Shariati was not going to be denied a medal this time. In the second third place match, Sergey Semenov of Russia ousted two-time World champion Heiki Nabi of Estonia by a score of 6-0. Semenov, another young Russian, looked outstanding in his first World/Olympic tournament and will be looking to win gold for many years to come.
USA Update: Overall, it was a very disappointing Olympics for the U.S. Greco team. In a must win match, Robby Smith quickly scored the first two points on Sabah Sharitai on a solid arm spin and Smith held on to that lead going into the break. In the second period, Smith was put down for passivity and from there on out, the match was dominated by Sharitai. Sharitai would go on to hit four gut wrenches on Smith en route to an 8-2 victory. Sharitai would then to lose to Kayaalp, ending the day for Robby Smith. At 85 kg, Ben Provisor had 2015 silver medalist Rustam Assakalov in the opening round. Just as I predicted, Provisor battled for the entire six minutes, but a four point lift by Assakalov proved to be too much to overcome. In the end, USA went 2-4 in Greco and will now go back to back Olympics without earning a medal.