Rob Koll: 'Yianni Is Definitely Going To Take An Olympic Redshirt'
Rob Koll: 'Yianni Is Definitely Going To Take An Olympic Redshirt'
Cornell Big Red head coach Rob Koll revealed that two-time NCAA champ Yianni Diakomihalis will definitely take an Olympic redshirt this season.
Cornell Big Red head coach Rob Koll revealed that two-time NCAA champ Yianni Diakomihalis will take an Olympic redshirt this upcoming NCAA season.
Koll spoke to Trackwrestling at the NWCA Convention in Fort Lauderdale, Flordia about a variety of topics, but the most relevant to the NCAA season was when Koll was asked about the potential for Yianni to defer eligibility to pursue an Olympic Gold medal at Tokyo 2020. Coach Koll was clear about that prospect.
Yianni is definitely going to take an Olympic redshirt year. There's no doubt about that. It would be selfish of me not to encourage him to do so.
Coach Koll also revealed that their protest of Yianni's second match with Zain Retherford from Final X: Rutgers will proceed with arbitration on August 8, with a decision rendered that day or soon thereafter.
The arbitrators could rule for three different options 1) that Yianni won round 2, which would force a third decisive match for the 2019 65kg senior world team spot; 2) that Zain rightfully won the match, making Zetherford the American rep in Kazakhstan; or 3) that the second match should be re-wrestled, restarting the best-of-three series with Zain leading 1-0.
Watch Yianni's first match with Zain below:
The second bout, which is subject to the current dispute, is below:
Coach Koll was slightly more coy about the potential for three other Cornell starters to take Olympic redshirts, with 125-pound All-American Vito Arujau, 174-pounder Andrew Berreyesa, and 184-pound NCAA runnerup Max Dean all with Olympic redshirt eligibility.
Cornell will see the return of 2018 All-American 197-pounder Ben Darmstadt after he missed all of last season due to injury. Coming back with sophomore eligibility, Darmstadt may move down to 184, taking over a potentially vacated spot from Dean.
With all that happening, Cornell's lineup for the 2019-20 season could look as follows (with all the caveats of trying to predict a line up in August that apply):
125 - SR Noah Baughman/SO Dominic LaJoie
133 - SR Chas Tucker
141 - SO Michael Venosa/JR Max Pickett/FR Phillip Moomey
149 - JR Richard Hunter/FR Colton Yapoujian/SR Chris Shoenherr
157 - JR Adam Santoro/SR Fredy Stroker
165 - SR Milk Dawkins/FR Andrew Merola
174 - SR Brandon Womack
184 - SO Ben Darmstadt
197 - FR Jacob Cardenas/FR Lewis Fernandes
285 - SO Brendan Furman
And then in 2020-21 Cornell's (HIGHLY SPECULATIVE) lineup could be:
125 - SO Vito Arujau/FR Greg Diakomihalis
133 - SO Vito Arujau/FR Greg Diakomihalis
141 - JR Yianni Diakomihalis/FR Josh Saunders
149 - JR Yianni Diakomihalis/FR Josh Saunders
157 - SR Adam Santoro
165 - SO Andrew Berreyesa/SO Andrew Merola
174 - FR Chris Foca/Julian Ramirez
184 - JR Ben Darmstadt/JR Max Dean
197 - JR Ben Darmstadt/JR Max Dean
285 - SO Lewis Fernandes/JR Brendan Furman
Click here for the entire interview with Coach Koll.