Team USA Takes Second At Yasar Dogu Tournament
Photo: Kadir Caliskan
This past weekend, Team USA competed at the United World Wrestling rankings tournament Yasar Dogu. This is an important tournament leading up to the world championships in september because it helps to determine bracket seedings. Team USA performed excellent out on the mat and losing to the host country of Turkey.
At 65kg, Team USA brought a pair of wrestlers to compete: Yianni Diakomihalis (Rochester, N.Y./Titan Mercury WC/FLWC) and Zain Retherford (State College, Pa./Nittany Lion WC). The brackets for the tournament are done via random draw and the pair of Americans drew each other for their first match. Yianni won the match and eventually went on to win the entire tournament. Retherford lost his second match and did not place.
This was a weight class that everyone was watching this weekend because Retherford recently beat Yianni in Final X to earn his spot on this year’s world team in what some are considering controversial. Needless to say it only fuels the fire that Yianni won the entire tournament and Retherford did not place. There have been rumors that Retherford was injured sometime this weekend, but that has yet to be substantiated.
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James Green (Lincoln, Neb./Sunkist Kids/Nebraska WTC) represented the U.S. at 70kg. Green had a disappointing tournament going 0-1 on the weekend.
Representing the United States at 74kg was Jordan Burroughs (Lincoln, Neb./Sunkist Kids/Nebraska WTC). Burroughs took home first place, but did receive a forfeit in the finals by Frank Chamizo. Burroughs and Chamizo have gone back and forth multiple times and currently Chamizo is ranked ahead of Burroughs and did not compete against Burroughs this weekend because he already had the number one seed for the world championships. It looks like Burroughs will be seed number two at the world championships. Hopefully we can see them wrestle each other there for a world title this fall.
At 79kg, Alex Dieringer (Stillwater, /Titan Mercury WC/Cowboy RTC) represented the United States. Dieringer had an amazing weekend bringing home the gold for Team USA. Even though he won the tournament, he still has to wrestle Kyle Dake in August for a spot on Team USA to wrestle for a world championship. Dake is the returning world champion at 79kg.
Pat Downey (Princeton, N.J./Titan Mercury WC/NJRTC) wrestled for the U.S. at 86kg. Downey went 0-2 in the tournament.
J’den Cox (Colorado Springs, Colo./Titan Mercury WC/USOTC) competed at 92kg and had a perfect tournament. The returning world champion took home first place. Cox tech falled his way through the tournament and out scored his opponents 42-0.
At 97kg, former world champion Kyle Snyder (Columbus, Ohio/Titan Mercury WC/Ohio RTC) had some tough matches but still ended up on top of the podium bringing home gold.
Nick Gwiazdowski (Raleigh, N.C./Titan Mercury WC/Wolfpack RTC) wrestled 125kg for the U.S. and took home second place losing to Taha Akgu of Turkey in the finals.
In addition to the men’s freestyle team, Forrest Molinari of the women’s freestyle team also took home first place at 65kg.
Team USA had a great showing and looks to do very well at the world championships this september in Kazakhstan.
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