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Sarah Hildebrandt going for GOLD at the world championships!!


maligned

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As Runner-Up said on another thread, Sarah Hildebrandt beats a Kazakh 5-1 and an Azerbaijani 15-9 this morning to advance to the 117-lb world championship semi-finals a little later. She'll be the second match up when action resumes at 10:45am eastern/9:45am central. For those not familiar with the international tournament procedures, this guarantees she'll wrestle for either World gold or World bronze tomorrow afternoon. Let's go, Sarah!!

Edited by maligned
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Side note: If you follow this stuff, you know Indiana's own Kayla Miracle was beaten 2 matches to 1 by Mallory Velte in a hotly contested best-of-3 "Final X" event to be our 136.5-lb  representative at this week's world championships. Velte has won her first 3 matches this morning by 8 points or more and is also in the semi-finals.

Side note #2: Our unbeatable multiple-time golden girl, Helen Maroulis, who last year teched every opponent and didn't yield even a single point on her way to gold, was put to her back and pinned in her opening match this morning. Her Azerbaijani opponent lost her next match and Maroulis was eliminated from the competition.

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I've watched a lot of Sarah's national and international matches over the past 5 years. Her evolution into one of the best in the world has been incredible to see. Even just 3 seasons ago, she struggled mightily to have the firepower and the engine to battle with our best domestically--let alone internationally. But she kept evolving and her skills--especially in terms of variety of attacks--blossomed immensely. Then, she decided to get serious about diet and conditioning, went down a weight class as a result without even trying, and now she's all attack all the time with the motor to go with it. She's turned into an incredibly entertaining wrestler capable of beating absolutely anyone. She's most definitely capable of beating her Japanese opponent tomorrow and, win or lose, this worlds is the culmination of a most-impressive rise to the top of the heap.

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Dumb job and life responsibilities getting in the way of me keeping up.  They really should just give a holiday week for the World Championships.  

Way to go Sarah. Years of hard work and your recommitment to living a champions lifestyle is paying off.   

 

Sarah’s opponent won’t be a slouch though.  She’s one of the HS phenoms that have recently came out of Japan.  Was a previous U23 age group and senior world champ while still in HS.  Pretty impressive and a testament to just how advanced the women’s Japanese system compared to the world. 

Edited by MattM
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2 hours ago, ILUV2PIN said:

Sucks for Helen :( 

I think she’s may still be dealing with the effects of he previous concussion problem.  If some of you are not aware it was a pretty scary situation and she just recently got someone to clear her in time for a last min. wrestle-off.   While the concussion itself may not be the issue with her loss, the lack of preparation (training, conditioning, focus, etc.) for the last several months may have left her open to something that she previously wouldn’t have fall into.   At least I hope it was just preparation rather than the concussion symptoms still being there which may be a sign she should be done with her competitive career. 

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If you have Directv it is on channel 624, Olympic Channel.  If you don't get that channel, call and add the Sports Pack and verify that will get it.  You can cancel it tomorrow and they will pro-rate it so it will cost next to nothing.

2nd 50kg bronze match up next, so Sarah will be after 3 more matches

Edited by SWINfan
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3 hours ago, BClark said:

Can you go into more details on this? What specifically sets them apart?

Not sure I have the insight on all the detail of what sets them apart.  I do know Japan has been a big proponent of the women freestyle movement since basically the beginning.  They also have been putting a lot of funding and emphasis in identifying and developing young talent.  I'm going out on a limb and guessing the countries tradition of Judo may also play a roll in developing a few young athletes that then transition into wrestling later. This has allowed them to jump out early and stay on top as women's freestyle continues to grow worldwide. What their training consists of I'm not sure, but I'm sure will all the medals they are winning that they have a pretty good system in place.  I've read in more than one Japanese women's interview about their expectation of winning and carrying on the tradition of success.  It seems like the U.S. women's team is starting to catch up, but as a while Japan's program still seems to be way ahead.   

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2 hours ago, UncleJimmy said:

Can you international styles gurus explain the whys of the 2 bronze medals? Not quite understanding or am missing something. Has it always been that way?

It’s been that way for awhile now.  The real logic is to spread the medals out more between more countries.  The UWW (international wrestling organization) and IOC (Olympics) like making more of their member countries happy by ensuring more places have a medal to take home.  Since some countries dominate the top spots the double bronze helps a little in smoothing that around.  It is also why they have a mostly blind draw (though they added a slight seeding criteria recently) for the chance that a few new countries find a path to at least the bronze medal match.  Also this is likely why Greco will always stay, since it often has medal winners that come from countries that don’t traditionally medal in other Olympic sports or even freestlye.   Spread the love a little and make your supporting nations happy enough to keep participating.

 

Also the repechage to get to the 2 bronze medal matches isn’t a traditional “wrestle back”. Only those wrestlers who lost to the finalists are eligible for consolations.  They basically move up a ladder system of who lost until they face the loser of the semi-final for the bronze.  This happens on both sides of the bracket.   The logic again is they often are less worried about awarding the medal to the overall top three as they are just happy the clear winner is found and that the other medals have more of a a chance of getting spread out between other nations.  

Edited by MattM
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Unfortunately Sara was teched 11-0 by her Japanese opponent.  She’s had a close match with her before, so the gap can still be closed.   

 

Still a great tournament for her as she picked up a World Silver Medal.  Keep working Sara and more good things are still to come.  

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In related news the girl that barely beat Kayla Miracle a close trials final best of 3, just got the bronze medal.   So hopefully if Kayla can make the proper adjustments to close out the match next time we will see two IN women with a real shot at a on the World/Olympic in the near future.  

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2 hours ago, Thor said:

So does this make Sarah the best wrestler in Indiana history? Any other Indiana wrestler get a world silver or better?

From what I can tell seems to be the most internationally accomplished wrestler from Indiana now. 

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4 hours ago, WoodJC82 said:

Do Alara Boyd's two world medals at Cadet figure into the question of any Indiana wrestler ever get a world silver or better?

We have had a few IN wrestlers have some success at the Cadet and Junior international level.  Great accomplishment for Miss Boyd and hopefully a sign of positive things to come from this young lady.  However, in most peoples eyes winning a Senior Level World Championship medal would trump a few lower level medals.

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19 minutes ago, MattM said:

We have had a few IN wrestlers have some success at the Cadet and Junior international level.  Great accomplishment for Miss Boyd and hopefully a sign of positive things to come from this young lady.  However, in most peoples eyes winning a Senior Level World Championship medal would trump a few lower level medals.

I didn't think the question was trumping one or the other...question was..Any other Indiana wrestler ever get a world silver or better?

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1 hour ago, WoodJC82 said:

I didn't think the question was trumping one or the other...question was..Any other Indiana wrestler ever get a world silver or better?

Sorry, I had interpreted both questions as being linked together rather than two separate ones. Asking if anyone would equal or top Sarah’s Senior Level accomplishment and thus be the best wrestler in IN history.  Sorry for the confusion if that wasn’t the case.  As I mentioned previously I think Sarah’s World Silver may make her the most accomplished international wrestler we have had in IN history.

But yes, Alara deserves all sorts of props for her continued success both domestically and  abroad.  Im glad to see we still have a pipeline of talented women coming from our state.  

 

And to go along with your post I’d say it is worth mentioning all of the international success IN wrestlers have had reguardless of the age level  it occurred at.  

Edited by MattM
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