PONTEVEDRA, Spain – South Dakota State wrestler Tanner Sloan is abroad this week to compete on an international stage in the U23 World Championship.
Sloan is slated to compete in the 97-kilogram senior freestyle division Friday and Saturday. Qualification rounds will be held on Friday, with medal matches taking place on Saturday. The draw for the senior freestyle division has yet to be announced.
MINNEAPOLIS – A pair of current Gophers will be heading overseas in hopes of becoming a world champion, as both Michial Foy and Aaron Nagao will compete in the U23 World Championships in Pontevedra, Spain next week.
Foy, a sixth-year senior for Minnesota, will be competing on Monday morning at 87 kilograms as the Greco-Roman portion of the tournament gets underway. Foy earned his ticket to the World Championships by winning the 87-kilogram bracket at the U23 World Team Trials earlier this summer, beating opponent Vincent Baker in the Best-of-3 finals.
United World Wrestling has confirmed that all of the international teams which qualified to compete in the 2022 Men’s and Women’s Freestyle World Cup have accepted their berths. This exciting international competition will be held at Xtream Arena in Coralville, Iowa, Dec. 10-11.
The top five teams in men’s freestyle and the top five teams in women’s freestyle from the 2022 Senior World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia in September were invited, and have confirmed their participation.
The World Cup is the annual international dual meet championships. This will be the first time in history that the men’s freestyle World Cup and the women’s freestyle World Cup events will be held side-by-side.
In men’s freestyle, the teams which will compete are (in rank order): 1. USA; 2. Iran; 3. Japan; 4. Mongolia; 5. Georgia.
David Mirikitani speaks with Olympic medalist and Pinnacle Coach Brandon Paulson and his father Doug Paulson, who is also a successful wrestling coach.
Former Apple Valley wrestler Seth Gross lost in his 61 kg bronze medal match 12-0 to Arsen Harutyunyan of Armenia ending his World Championships with a 5th-place finish.
Former Apple Valley wrestler Seth Gross, making his Senior World Championships debut, came out on fire today with three wins before being stopped in the semifinals. He teched Ukraine’s Andrii Dzhelep of Ukraine in his first match and scored seven unanswered points against Poland’s two-time European bronze winner Eduard Grigorev in his next match. In the quarterfinals, Gross notched a 10-4 win over 2019 World silver and 2018 World bronze medalist Suleyman Atli of Turkey. In the semifinals, Gross lost 14-7 to 2016 Olympic silver medalist Rei Higuchi of Japan.
Gopher Wrestling Club’s Hayden Zillmer, in his first Senior World Championships appearance, earned two wins to advance to the quarterfinals. There, he dropped a 9-4 bout to two-time Olympic medalist and three-time World champion Geno Petriashvili from Georgia.
Zillmer was eliminated from the tournament when Petriashvili was upset in the semifinals by Lkhagvagerel Munkhtur of Mongolia, failing to pull Zillmer into repechage.