When many of his fellow Tucsonans are sleeping in the early-morning hours at 3:03 a.m. Thursday, Roman Bravo-Young will be wide awake and prepared to begin his quest for the gold medal in the 57-kilogram (125-pound) competition at the Paris Olympics.
Bravo-Young, representing Mexico to honor his mother’s ancestory, will enter the competition as one of eight wrestlers who are unseeded. The seeding system is questionable because the United World Wrestling seeds wrestlers based how they performed in its sanctioned events in the last year not in overall competition.
Bravo-Young, a four-time state champ at Sunnyside and two-time national champ titlist at Penn State, will face No. 3 Arsen Harutyunyan of Armenia in the opening round. If Bravo-Young defeats Harutyunyan, he will wrestle in the quarterfinals without much delay at 3:31 a.m. against either No. 8 Gulomjon Abdullaev of Uzbekistan or Aliabbas Rzazade of Azerbaijan.
The semifinal match is scheduled for 9:22 a.m.
All the matches will be televised live on Peacock.
The medal-round matches are Friday — gold at 10:55 a.m.. which follows the bronze-medal match scheduled at 10:40.
PARIS OLYMPICS 57 KILOGRAMS RANKINGS
United World Wrestling uses ranking points earned annually by individual wrestlers to determine the top eight Olympic seeds. Wrestlers can earn these rankings (or seeding) points at the World Championships, Continental Championships, or two different Ranking Series events. Wrestlers at the Olympics are then seeded by their points. This system encourages the best wrestlers to participate in the events UWW puts on throughout the year.
- Stevan Micic, Serbia
- Rei Higuchi, Japan
- Arsen Harutyunyan, Armenia
- Meirambek Kartbay, Kazakhstan
- Zelimkhan Abakarov, Albania
- Aman Sehrawat, India
- Wanhao Zou, China
- Gulomjon Abdullaev, Uzbekistan
Unseeded 57-kg wrestlers listed in order of rankings points:
- Gamal Mohamed, Egypt
- Diamantino Iuna Fafe, Guinea-Bissau
- Aliabbas Rzazade, Azerbaijan
- Spencer Lee, United States
- Darian Cruz, Puerto Rico
- Vladimir Egorov, North Macedonia
- Roman Bravo-Young, Mexico
- Bekzat Almaz Uulu, Kyrgyzstan
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