After 2 weights of competition are completed in Tokyo, the team race for Men’s Freestyle at the Olympics has just gotten started. Although the Olympics doesn’t officially give a “team trophy”, we’ll be tracking the team competition and crown the team champs at the end of the Olympic Games. There’s still about half the tournament to wrestle but take a look at the current team standings.

USA And Russia At The Top

After the first 2 weights have been wrestled in Men’s Freestyle, Russia and USA are tied at the top of the leaderboard. Both countries have gone “blow for blow” in the team race up to this point with almost identical results. Russia struck first after Zaur Uguev pulled off a last second takedown to beat Thomas Gilman. Uguev would go on to win another last second match against Abdulallaev and ultimately win gold over Ravi Kumar (IND) in the finals. Despite the loss, Gilman came back for bronze and earned 15 valuable team points for the USA.

At 86kg, David Taylor won in the legendary showdown against Hassan Yazdani (IRI). In one of the most dramatic Olympic finals in recent history (or all of history), David Taylor scored a takedown to secure the lead with less than 20 seconds in the match. The Olympic Gold for Taylor also earned Team USA 25 points in the team standings. Despite Taylor’s dominance, Russia answered with a bronze of their own at 86kg with Artur Naifonov’s win over Javrail Shapiev (UZB).

Take a look at the current top 10 leaderboard:

Outlook For The Final 2 Days

Russia and USA also matched results at 74kg and 125kg. Two-time defending world champion Zaurbek Sidakov looked dominant making the finals with 3 wins, outscoring his opponents 36-8. Sidakov’s performance up to this point has earned Russia 20 points and he has the potential for 5 more. At 125kg for Russia, Sergey Kozyrev fell in the first round to Zhiwei Deng (CHN) and was eliminated when Deng lost to Petriashvili. Russia will not earn any points for Kozyrev’s performance.

Gable Steveson matched Sidakov’s performance by making a statement, and the Olympic finals, against 2-time world champion and Olympic Champion Taha Akgul. Steveson shut-out Akgul 8-0 and never looked in danger of giving up a point. Steveson will wrestle in the finals tomorrow against 3 time defending world champion Geno Petriashvili.

On the other side of Steveson’s success was Kyle Dake’s shocking loss to Magomedkhabib Kadimagomedov (BLR) in the quarter-finals. Though Kyle Dake will not win gold, he does have the opportunity to wrestle back for bronze. Dake hasn’t earned any points for USA and will have his work cut out for him. He’ll need to defeat 4-time world medalist Geandry Garzon to meet 2-time world champion Frank Chamizo in the bronze medal match. 

Russia does have more bullets in the chamber than USA as they have two wrestlers left compared to USA’s one. Russia will send out defending world Champion Gadzhimurad Rashidov at 65kg and the pound for pound #1 Abdulrashid Sadulaev at 97kg. With USA not having a 65kg wrestler at these Games, only Kyle Snyder remains at 97kg. In order for USA to keep pace with Russia, Dake and Snyder will need to score the maximum amount of points and Russia will have to fail to make the finals at 65 or 97.

Believe it or not, the team title could come down to Snyder vs Sadulaev in the gold medal match like it did in 2017. In order for that to happen Kyle Dake must win bronze and Gable needs to win gold. On top of that either Rashidov finishes in bronze with Sidakov winning gold or both Rashidov and Sidakov need to finish with silver. There's a lot more wrestling to take place and we'll keep you posted on the team race every step of the way.