CHROMEBIRD

Dake must be getting close to hanging it up, no matter what happens at the Olympics. I wonder what he'll decide. How about Adeline? Did she retire?

Patricia Saunders would arguably have been a 3-time Olympian if WFS existed before 2004. Kristie Davis might've been a 4-timer or more (maybe).

Good question. I imagine part of the muscle and gas tank perception comes from our folkstyle tradition. Strength and conditioning can get you pretty far in a style that's based heavily on control, riding, and long scrambles whereas wrestling through takedowns or scrambles in freestyle to get or prevent an exposure could be perceived as more finesse or technique-based. Idk if many people believe that's true today, there are so many opportunities for American wrestlers to train with or be coached by international FS/GR folks and develop solid technique, plus tons of international wrestling footage for us to learn from. The introduction of the step-out rule could arguably have played to the success of some American wrestlers but I'd guess that ppl outside the US would broadly say that our wrestlers are successful because we're a wealthy country with lots of resources, as is assumed with many other sports.

The only one I can think of is synchronized swimming. Gymnastics also has pretty different, gender-specific events but men's and women's are sort of considered to be different sports. But yeah, not too many men-only or women's-only core sports out there.

I was hoping this would be about someone with a name like Greg Kerkbleat or Lincoln Baa-cilravy

/

Exactly. Also taking bad shots forces the offensive wrestler to chain wrestle out of the situation and find another scoring opportunity, which leads to more excitement. If slip throws was an effective rule, Judo would have adopted it in a second.

I wonder if she's still adjusting to the cut. She's said that it was manageable but who knows. Speaking of getting back to full strength, I hope we see Fujinami at 100% in Paris. I think she's wants to compete at 57kg? @CA_Wrestler probably has the inside scoop. But if Maroulis can finish her career with wins over Yoshida and Fujinami... just wow.

I believe grabbing the singlet was always prohibited, even in the super low-cut 80s & 90s Coach J singlet days. Penalty is assessed at the official's discretion, from a verbal warning to DQ or ban (assessed after the match). This came up after the Burroughs-Tsargush Grabgate and when the UWW launched its overhyped "new" singlet design.

I completely forgot about this. What did Bender say?

Agreed. Admittedly, I thought Vito would be our best rep at the Olympics, if he could handle the cut, but think Spencer is the more likely of the two to qualify the weight. Making weight for OTTs and then having to suck down again a couple of weeks later might've been rough for Vito or Gilman. Spencer, no prob.

Could be that he's found some inner peace, but it could also be that he was just distracted with other priorities. Gilman said in an interview (before the finals) that he wasn't even sure if he was going to compete in this cycle's Olympic trials, and mentioned struggling with some domestic adversity over the past several months. Not making excuses for him, but sometimes life happens, esp at that age. He's also not the type of person to randomly bring up stuff like that, so it must've been pretty serious. Whatever it was, I hope he & his family are okay.

You forgot the second half of the story. Cox caught a pretty nice draw at that year's Worlds and DT called him out on Twitter for losing his semifinal match and having "no fight" because waaah it should've been me, I would've won that match, waaaah

All I know is that DT is gonna lose his shit on Twitter if Brooks loses to Yazdani in Paris

Pretty wild to see that India, China, Poland, Bulgaria, and others with zero MFS weights qualified (if I'm looking at the list correctly). Aze with zero qualified in WM.