Brackets are posted for the men’s freestyle portion of the 2nd Olympic Games World Qualifier. What does the qualification path look like for Frank Molinaro?

Frank Molinaro, 65kg

The random draw did nothing to help Frank’s cause on the way to qualifying the weight. The bracket is completely balanced with 32 wrestlers competing, but the bottom half of the bracket, where Molinaro resides, is much deeper in talent.

In the first round Molinaro drew David Safaryan of Armenia. Safaryan was a 2013 world champion, but has not been able to replicate that level of success since. Safaryan was bronze at the European qualifier and lost to Novachkov in the repechage bronze medal match in Mongolia.

In round two the expectation is for 2015 junior world silver medalist, Yuhi Fujinami to be waiting for the winner of Molinaro. He also has a cadet world silver and junior Asian championship silver to go with the junior finish from last year.

Once you get a few matches deep nothing is set in stone, but Borislav Novachkov is expected to be waiting in the quarterfinals. Novachkov wrestles for Bulgaria, but American fans know him from his high school days in California and his college tenure at Cal Poly. Novachkov seems to compete better against foreign competition than he does against domestic foes like Molinaro.

The semifinal possibilities is where the controversy begins. Seungchul Lee of Korea and Azamat Nurikov of Belaraus wrestle first round. The winner would seem to be the most likely candidate to make the semifinal. Nurikov has lost in the bronze medal match back-to-back years at the world championships, but last year was up at the non-Olympic weight of 70kg.

The other possible winner of that quarter is Semen Radulov of Ukraine. American fans might remember him from his shootout win over Logan Stieber at the International Ukraine Tournament. He also took bronze at the European Championships at 65kg after being the world representative for Ukraine up at 70kg in 2015. He brings the mystery and controversy to the bracket as Andrey Kviatkovski earned an Olympic license for Ukraine at 65kg at the European Olympic Games Qualifier. The only explanation I can think of is that Kviatkovski failed doping control and Ukraine was stripped of the license.

This scenario is also playing out at 125kg as Ukraine and Belarus have wrestlers in the bracket after earning licenses at the European qualifier. What happens to the extra license available at 65kg? Why are countries that failed doping control allowed another chance at qualification? This is all speculation as to why they have representatives in the bracket, but it is the only logical reason as you cannot wrestle in a qualifier once your country has earned a license.