Rio 2016: Olympic wrestling preview day 2: Greco-Roman 85kg & 130kg

Bloody Elbow 2.0 | Anton Tabuena

We’ll begin this preview of Day 2 as we will all future previews, with a link back to our Olympics Wrestling primer, which has a cheat sheet and live stream details.

Also a note that wrestling brackets are random draw and uneven. You can check out the brackets from the 2015 World Championship and the European Olympic Qualification Tournament to give you a better idea of what the Rio brackets will look like.

All to the point that picking place finishers before the weigh-ins are completed and brackets are released (which happens the day before the tournament) is a fool’s errand. Which is perhaps why I find it so much fun.

Greco-Roman 85kg

PICKS

GOLD: Zhan Beleniuk UKR

SILVER: Saman Tahmasebi AZE

BRONZE: Rustum Assakalov UZB

BRONZE: Viktor Lorincz HUN

CONTENDERS

Ukraine’s Beleniuk has been a consistent elite performer over the last couple years, and arrives at Rio as the reigning world champ. Azerbaijan’s Tahmasebi got the better of Beleniuk in 2014 but was revenged in 2015. Hungary’s Lorincz has a brace of world bronze medals and I picked Uzbekistan’s Assakolov because his name makes me giggle.

OTHERS OF NOTE

American Ben Provisor is back for his second Olympics looking for his first medal. He’s wrestling up a weight class from the 74kg he wrestled in London, but once you see Provisor on the mat you’ll know where the extra weight came from (hint, it rhymes with the capital of Belgium).

RANKINGS

1 UKR Zhan BELENIUK

2 HUN Viktor LORINCZ

3 RUS Davit CHAKVETADZE

4 UZB Rustam ASSAKALOV

5 AZE Saman TAHMASEBI

6 GER Denis KUDLA

8 GEO Roberti KOBLIASHVILI

9 IRI Habibollah AKHLAGHI

13 BLR Javid HAMZATAU

14 BUL Nikolay BAYRYAKOV

16 ARM Maksim MANUKYAN

19 SWE Kristoffer BERG

20 EGY Ahmed SAAD

ALG Adem BOUDJEMLINE

AUT Amer HRUSTANOVIC

CHN Fei PENG

FIN Rami HIETANIEMI

IND Ravinder KHATRI

KGZ Zhanarbek KENZHEEV

MEX Alfonso LEYVA

USA Benjamin PROVISOR

Greco-Roman 130kg

PICKS

GOLD: Riza Kalyaalp TUR

SILVER: Mijain Lopez CUB

BRONZE: Heiki Nabi EST

BRONZE: Robby Smith U S and A

CONTENDERS

The massive Turk Kalyaalp beat the legendary Cuban Lopez in last year’s finals in Vegas, but Lopez will be looking to make history by winning third Olympic gold. If we’re lucky they will both make the finals again. Estonia’s Nabi has been around for a decade and has earned a clutch of medals over the years. Crowd-pleaser and people’s champ, Robby Smith, has a pair of fifth place finishes at past world championships and he’s just too darn likable not to pick for a bronze.

OTHERS OF NOTE

Russia’s Bilyal Makhov astoundingly won bronze medals at heavyweight in both Greco-Roman and Men’s Freestyle at last year’s world championship. He’ll stick to freestyle this year, letting two time junior world champ, Sergey Semenov, step up to the senior level.

RANKINGS

1 TUR Riza KAYAALP

2 CUB Mijain LOPEZ

3 UKR Oleksandr CHERNETSKYY

4 GER Eduard POPP

5 SWE Johan EUREN

6 RUS Sergey SEMENOV

9 KAZ Nurmakhan TINALIYEV

12 EST Heiki NABI

13 CHN Qiang MENG

14 IRI Bashir BABAJANZADEH-DARZI

15 AZE Sabah SHARIATI