U23 Draws For Mckenna, Lewis, Martinez, and Walz

U23 Draws For Mckenna, Lewis, Martinez, and Walz

Day two of men's freestyle brackets at the U23 world championships for Joey McKenna, Richie Lewis, Isaiah Martinez and Ty Walz.

Nov 25, 2017 by Wrestling Nomad
U23 Draws For Mckenna, Lewis, Martinez, and Walz

After a disappointing day one, the draws seem to be more favorable for men's freestyle to bring home a medal on day two of the U23 world championships in Poland.

Below are the brackets and complete draw analysis for Joey McKenna of Ohio State, Richie Lewis of Rutgers, Isaiah Martinez of Illinois, and Virginia Tech grad Ty Walz. Team USA has yet to win a medal in any style so far, but our final four chances might just be the best bets to do so.

65kg: Joey McKenna, NJ

McKenna lands in top quadrant of the bottom half of a 26-man bracket. He starts off with Patryk Olenczyn of host country Poland. Olenczyn has a great deal of age level experience, having wrestled in two junior and three cadet world championships.

The real test comes in the second round against Nachyn Kuular (RUS). He has won each of the past two World Military titles, as well as a junior Euro title and runner-up finish at the Yarygin from 2015. The winner of that match should make the semis, setting McKenna up for either a finals run or a great shot at repechage.

70kg: Richie Lewis, NJ

Lewis lands at the bottom of a 21-man bracket, opening up against Caleb Rutner of Canada, who wrestled at the 2012 cadet and 2013 junior world championships.

In the round of 16, he'll see either Surkho Rashytkhanau (BLR) or Jonatan Alvarez Diaz (ESP). Rashytkhanau competed at the 2013 and 2014 junior world championships, but his main success has come at the continental level. He was silver at the 2016 U23 Euro championships, silver at the 2015 junior Euro championships and bronze at the 2014 junior Euros.

Lewis' quarterfinal should be his toughest match. Possible options include Russian Nationals champ Magoma Dibirgadzhiev, U23 Euro champ Gadzhimurad Omarov of Azerbaijan, or U23 Euro bronze Muhammet Akdeniz of Turkey.

74kg: Isaiah Martinez, CA

Making his world championship debut is the two time NCAA title winner for Illinois. He winds up in the bottom quadrant, starting out with Gadzhi Nabiev of Russia. Nabiev was the 2015 junior world champ at this weight, and runner-up at Russian Nationals back in June. Since then, he's taken bronze at the Ali Aliev and Interncontinental Cups.

After that though, it gets a bit easier on paper. None of his possible opponents in the round of 16 or quarterfinals have medals from any major tournaments of note, which is advantageous for maintaining stamina for the semis.

There are three main candidates there: U23 Euro champ Avtandil Kentchadze (GEO), junior world bronze Mohammad Mottaghinia (IRI), or my dark horse, Yajuro Yamasaki (JPN), a 2014 Asian and Youth Olympic Games champ as a cadet.

97kg: Ty Walz, OH

The former Virginia Tech heavyweight has a very tough opening round match against Erik Thiele (GER), who in the last two years has been silver at junior Euros, silver at senior Euros, and silver at junior worlds.

But, being on the top half means he's in a much better situation to medal, as Thiele only needs to win two more to pull Walz back in repechage, and Walz likewise has to win the same to make the finals.

Waiting in the quarters is either Aleksander Wojtachnio (POL), or much more likely Dzianis Khramiankou (BLR). The Belarusian moved up to 97kg this year after being silver and bronze the prior two years at 84kg at junior worlds.