Junior Worlds: Day One Draws

Schedule | Brackets

Draws have been released for day one of the UWW Junior World Championships. Competing tomorrow will be 50kg Randon Miranda (NMU-OTS), 60kg Taylor Lamont (Champions WC), 74kg Kamal Bey (Front Range WC), and 96kg G'Angelo "Tracy" Hancock (Front Range WC).

Wrestling will start at 3AM CT, and all the action can be viewed LIVE right here on FloWrestling.

50kg

Randon Miranda sits in a seven-man top half and drew Hideto Yamaguchi (JPN), who has no known results. His quarterfinal opponent will be either Mehdi Mohsen Nejad (IRI) or Ilkhom Bakhromov (UZB). Nejad competed at this same weight last year as a cadet when he placed fifth at Worlds, but Bakhromov is far more accomplished. He was the Asian champion, and also has a Youth Olympic Games gold to his name.

Should Miranda win both, he is guaranteed to wrestle for a medal. He should see the gold-medal favorite, Nugzari Tsurtsumia (GEO), in the semifinals. The second-year junior took silver last year at this weight, and won the European title in June. These two met in the Austrian Open back in February, and Tsurtsumia tech'ed Miranda 8-0 there.

Georgia is favored to repeat as team champion, and their 50kg star is a big reason why. He is very active on the junior Greco circuit—he won the Austrian Open, the Freidenfelds Cup and the Azerbaijan Wrestling Federation Cup this year. In addition, Tsurtsumia went 4-0 to help Georgia to a second-place finish last November at the Martyrs Cup, a junior dual meet held in Iran.

60kg

Taylor Lamont drew a very winnable round-one match. He lands at the very top of the bracket against Madalin Nicolae Bulgar of Romania, who was tech'ed by Dom Demas two years ago in the first round of Cadet Worlds.

Should he win, his quarterfinal possibilities are Mateusz Radoslaw Szewczuk (POL) or Ariles Mouloud Adjaoud (FRA). Szewczuk competed for Poland at Euros this year as a junior and last year as a cadet; he did not place in the top 10 either time.

Adjouad is also new to Worlds competition, and, like Szewczuk, has not won a medal in three cracks at age-level Euros. But he does have senior bronze medals from this year's Grand Prix of Paris and last year's Mediterranean championships at 59kg. This is LaMont's fourth world team, so hopefully his experience can carry him through to the semifinals and guarantee a shot at a medal.

Based on credentials, his semifinal opponent could be either Etienne Kinsinger (GER) or Gevorg Khumaryn (ARM), who both took bronze medals from Euros two months ago.

74kg

Kamal Bey's bracket breaks down very evenly: 16 on his top half, and 17 on the bottom. He'll start off with Ze Chen of China, whose only known appearance was at the Asian championships earlier this year. Chen went 1-2 there en route to a fifth-place finish.

Should Bey win, his second-round match could be against either Israel or India. Reuven Zimkind (ISR) is in his final year of junior eligibility. He has represented his country at four world championships: two as a cadet, and two as a junior. Zimkind was second at the Austrian Open earlier this year.

Sajan (IND) is the other possibility. Still a cadet age-wise, he has two bronzes from cadet Asian championships. Like Bey, this is his first Junior Worlds experience, but he did compete at the 2014 Cadet Worlds.

Looking ahead to the quarterfinals, Bey would likely wrestle one of the two finalists from Euros. Zoltan Levai (HUN) won 2-0 over Artem Matiash there. Levai is also a returning bronze medalist at this weight who won the Republic Cup in Turkey back in October. Of note, Bey beat Zoltan's brother Tamas in March to win the Black Diamond Cup in Hungary.

96kg

Tracy Hancock is very much helped by sitting in the top half, where there are only eight wrestlers to the bottom 16. He'll start with Ravi (IND), the silver medalist from the Asian championships.

Croatia or Azerbaijan loom in the quarterfinals. I was unable to locate any previous tournaments for Nizami Shamilov (AZE). As for Vjekoslav Luburic (CRO), Hanock will have a size advantage. Luburic has been competing at the senior level the past three years at 85kg.

His potential semifinal opponent will come down to the winner of the Georgia/Iran quarterfinal. The Iranian is Amirhossein Hosseini, last year's silver medalist at this weight and the winner of Asian juniors. Hancock has not wrestled him, but he did battle Georgi Melia (GEO) in a 4-0 loss at the Austrian Open.

Melia has been very active since placing fifth last year at 84kg. Like his teammate Tsurtsumia, he wrestled in the Martyrs Cup, and won the Austrian Open, AWF Cup and Freidenfelds Cup.

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