Humphrey's Olympic qualifying competition (Coleman Scott) on fire at World Cup

[maligned]

We already knew this, but Humphrey is going to have to be at the top of his game to qualify for the Olympics next month.  

His first match will be against Coleman Scott, who is 4-0 after one day at the Wrestling World Cup, a duals tournament of the best 10 teams in the world.  After that, he would have a best of 3 with Shawn Bunch, who has also had some international success and is a former world team member.  If he can beat these guys again, I like his chances to make a run at a medal.

The U.S. goes 3-1 at the World Cup--losing a tough 4 matches to 3 dual to Iran--while beating Japan, Georgia, and Turkey.  We have Russia in the 3rd place match today.  Russia sent it's 3rd-5th best guys, while we have all of our Olympic Trials tournament winners except for one (Jake Herbert).  Russia's lineup is young, but loaded with Junior and University champions and medalists.  They lost a Pool match to the host country, Azerbaijan, who has their full Olympic lineup on display (haven't lost a single individual match--28-0--and have only lost 3 periods in those matches).  World Rankings coming into the tournament: 1. Russia, 2. Iran, 3. U.S., 4. Azerbaijan.

Of note if you care about our national team:
Sam Hazewinkel is 2-1 on the day.  Perhaps controversially substituted for with Nick Simmons in the Iran dual.  Simmons loses a tight one and we lose the dual.
Coleman Scott is 4-0, as mentioned.
Jared Frayer, the new guy to our team, lost a couple tough ones, notably going 0-1, 0-1 with the 2011 world champ from Iran.
Jordan Burroughs, our world champ, is undefeated and beat the world silver medalist from Iran in a rematch, 2-0, 1-0.  He's definitely the favorite for gold in London.
Keith Gavin was 1-2 going into the last dual, serving as the fill-in for the injured former world medalist, Herbert.
Jake Varner, world bronze medalist at 96kg, has 2 losses, but all the world top dogs are there from the deepest weight class in the world.
Tervel Dlagnev, former world medalist, was 3-0 (not sure of last match result, possibly against '11 world bronze medalist).

[maligned]

We beat the young Russian team, 5-2, to take 3rd place and finish with a 4-1 dual meet record.  Iran beats Azerbaijan to win the event by the same score they beat us (4-3).

Our final records:

55kg Sam Hazewinkel, 3-1; Nick Simmons, 0-1
60kg Coleman Scott, 5-0
66kg Jared Frayer, 3-2 (0-1, 0-1 against world champ, 0-2, 1-2 against world silver)
74kg Jordan Burroughs, 5-0
84kg Keith Gavin, 1-4
96kg Jake Varner, 2-3
120kg Tervel Dlagnev, 5-0

Overall: 24-11 match record against 5 of the Top 10 in the world.

[devildog47959]

Thanks for all the info on team USA! I'm glad our guys are getting some mat time against some of the worlds finest wrestlers & future Olympic opponents

Reece doesn't have an easy road to team USA but I think he can do it, going to be some great matches

[maligned]

So to be clear: two of Scott's wins this weekend were over one of the two World bronze medalists from last year and one of the two fifth placers from last year.  As a result, people on the national boards are anointing him our best medal contender at 60kg. 

Having seen the world championship matches last year, though, I really feel Hump just kind of blew it in the quarters.  He lost to a Frenchman that lost the bronze to a Japanese that I thought at the time Hump could have beaten.  That Japanese is the one Scott beat this weekend.  It's definitely not cut and dried for me that Scott is the new favorite.

[Devils27]

This may have been discussed already, but when is this match taking place?

[maligned]

In Times Square, June 7, at the Beat the Streets event.

[maligned]

I'm actually not sure what's going on now.  The official write-up about the Beat-the-Streets event is now on themat.com, but it says that the Bunch/Humphrey/Scott qualifier will be wrestled at a yet-to-be-determined date and place.  I thought it was all but decided they would do it at "Beat the Streets."  Not sure what's up.

[Y2CJ41]

http://themat.com/section.php?section_id=3&page=showarticle&ArticleID=25109

[MattM]

According to one of the Flo Guys, Oklahoma St. has had a wrestler in every single Olympics since the start (haven't verified that one).  But, no one from there has qualified for this year yet.  So, maybe tradition is favoring Scott pulling it off.  But, traditions can be broken.

[maligned]

http://themat.com/section.php?section_id=3&page=showarticle&ArticleID=25109

Ha.  They must have added that article just a couple minutes after my post.