Rio 2016: Olympic Wrestling Preview Day 8: Men’s Freestyle 65kg & 97kg

We’ll begin our final preview of Day 8 as we did all the previous previews, with a link back to our Olympics Wrestling primer, which has a cheat sheet and live stream details. Also a link to NBC’s wrestling webpage where you can find video streams. And here is a link to CBC’s streams for all you Canadians (or global citizens with computers that are pretending to be Canadian for now).

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 each tournament) is a fool’s errand. Which is perhaps why I find it so much fun.

Men’s Freestyle 65kg

PICKS

GOLD: Toghrul Asgarov AZE

SILVER: Soslan Ramonov RUS

BRONZE: Mandakhnaran Ganzorig MGL

BRONZE: Frank Chamizo ITA

CONTENDERS

65 kilograms is truly wide open, and anyone saying they’ve identified a favorite is lying. So take any field action bet you can find. Pick any one of a dozen guys and you can make an argument for their reaching Olympic glory.

My money is on Azerbaijan’s Asgarov. The former 20 year old wunderkind scored gold at the London Games and is still plenty young enough to mount a second Olympic quest for glory. After taking a two year break from competition to sow his royal oats, Asgarov stormed back on the scene in 2015 to show he is still a contender.

Russia’s Ramonov is the smilingest wrestler you’ll find on Instagram. The North Ossetian has won both a world gold and bronze medal and should add to his collection in Rio. Mongolia’s Ganzorig also has a pair of world medals (both bronze) and, like most of his countrymen, has an indefatigable, non-stop motor.

Frank Chamizo of Italy (by way of Cuba), is the defending world champion, but he had to pull several victories from the clutches of defeat on his way to that gold medal. Without a doubt he has to win it all in Rio, but in a field this crowded, nothing is for sure.

OTHERS OF NOTE

Pull any of the 21 competitors’ names out of a hat and …

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