A short while ago, the brackets for Day 1 of the 2017 U23 World Championships were released and three of the four USA Greco-Roman athletes set to compete will do so in the qualification round.
At 71 kilograms, Alex Mossing (NYAC/OTS) will be taking on 2011 Cadet World bronze medalist Armen Hakobyan (ARM), who was also a runner-up at the CISM World Military Championships this past September. Should Mossing advance, he will face the winner of Murat Dag (TUR) and 2015 Junior Asian Championships bronze medalist Takahiro Yamamoto (JPN.
Jesse Porter (75 kg, NYAC/OTS) appears on the bottom half of the bracket and has himself a sufficiently tough test in the likes of Fatih Cengiz (TUR). Cengiz, 22, most recently finished first at the Bolat Turlykhanov Memorial in Kazakhstan two months ago and in August, surprised many observers with a fifth-place finish at the Senior World Championships. If Porter gets past Cengiz, he will face whoever emerges between Paulius Galikinas (LTU) and 2017 Junior World bronze medalist Nasir Hasanov (AZE).
“The Bear” — Barrett Stanghill (Minnesota Storm) is all squared away in the top half of the 85 kilogram bracket and will do battle against a very skilled opponent — Emil Sandahl (SWE). A two-time Senior Nordic Championships gold medalist, Sandahl is a very technical competitor in all phases of the game, but is most effective when he gets chances on top. Stanghill’s physicality could be enough to neutralize Sandahl on the feet, so it should be a very interesting match-up to watch early on. If Stanghill can defeat Sandahl, he’ll become the second American on the day to wrestle a Cengiz from Turkey, as 2015 Junior World Champion Ali Cengiz enjoys a bye into the round of 16.
Blake Smith (NMU/OTS) is the only US wrestler with a qualification round bye. In the round of 16, Smith gets the winner of 2014 Junior World bronze medalist Zsolt Toeroek (HUN) and 2016 U23 European Championships runner-up Kikuri Kirtskhalia (GEO).
The action begins tomorrow morning at 10:00am local time in Bydgoszcz, Poland (4:00am EST) on Trackwrestling.com.
5PM U23 Coverage
All of our content related to the U23 World Championships can conveniently be found right here. As is custom, we will have post-round recaps and analysis following the US performances. To keep up with what is happening in real-time, we will also be providing live updates on Twitter throughout the day.
The podcast
Finally, after a two month break, “The Five Point Move Podcast” is back with two-time Junior World bronze medalist/2012 Olympian Ellis Coleman. Episode 10 sees Coleman discuss the high’s and low’s he endured over the past year along with a glimpse at a few noteworthy performances. In addition, Coleman digs into three “off-topic” questions related to various social issues currently in the news, making this episode a unique listen from beginning to end. Listen below:
Listen to “5PM10: Olympic and World Teamer Ellis Coleman” on Spreaker.
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