Jordan Oliver won the Olympic Trials but is the only Men’s Freestyler not qualified for the Olympics. If you don’t closely follow international wrestling, that might be confusing to you. Don’t worry, we’ll take a quick look at how the Olympic Qualification system works, how we got to this point and what Oliver needs to do to qualify for the Olympics on May 6th.

A Limited Field

Every bracket at the Olympics will consist of only 16 wrestlers. For perspective on how concentrated a field that is - there were 44 wrestlers in the 65kg weight class at the 2019 World Championships. Just qualifying for the Olympics is an impressive feat and can be done 1 of 3 ways by a country. Notice - country and not individual. For the Olympics, a country earns a qualifying spot at an Olympic weight. Then the country has the authority to determine what individual they send to represent them in that weight category. A country’s representative at a respective weight has 3 different opportunities to qualify. Let's look at the opportunities for Team USA at 65kg.

3 Chances to Qualify for Tokyo

1. The 2019 World Championships - Top 6

The first opportunity for a country to qualify a weight for the Olympics is at the World Championships the year before the Olympics. Because of the pandemic, this qualification goes back almost 2 years to 2019 Worlds. For a country to earn a qualifying spot, the representative needed to wrestle for a medal at the World Championships.

At 65kg, the world team rep for USA in 2019 was Zain Retherford. Retherford drew 2-time world bronze medalist Alejandro Valdes (CUB) in the first round and lost 10-9. Valdes would go on to lose in the round of 16, eliminating Retherford from the tournament and Team USA’s first chance to qualify 65kg for the Olympics.

Retherford vs Valdes

2. The 2020 Pan-Am Olympic Games Qualifier - Top 2

The second opportunity for each country is their continental qualifier. For the high school fan, think of your district/regional tournament to qualify for states, or the college fan-this is the conference championship to qualify for NCAAs. A country automatically qualifies their weight if the representative reached the finals of this tournament.

Once again, Zain Retherford was the representative at 65kg for the United States at the Pan-Am qualifier. Going into the tournament, Alejandro Valdes was seemingly the only roadblock for Retherford to reach the finals. The good news-Valdes was on the opposite side of the bracket, giving Retherford a clear path to the finals...or so we thought. 

Retherford reached the semis with two, 10-0 tech falls and met Agustin Destribats (ARG) in the match to qualify 65kg for the Olympics. Zain got a takedown 30 seconds into the match, went to transition into a leg-lace and disaster struck. Destribats perfectly timed a counter to the lace, caught Retherford’s arm and trapped Zain on his back. 30 seconds later, the pin was called - Destribats advanced to the finals, and USA once again missed their chance to qualify 65kg for the Olympics.

Retherford vs Destribats:

3. The World Olympic Qualifier - Top 2

Every country who did not qualify a weight at either the 2019 World Championships or their continental qualifier has one chance left-The World Olympic Qualifier in Sofia, Bulgaria - May 6-9. This is Oliver’s final opportunity and the process to qualify is clear and simple in Bulgaria - if Jordan Oliver makes the finals, he qualifies for the Olympics.

Like many things, because a task is simple, doesn’t mean it will be easy. The field will likely consist of over 25 wrestlers and they will not be seeded but randomly “drawn” into the bracket. We broke down the quality of his competition in this previous article -it consists of multiple former world medalists and a World/Olympic Champion. On top of that, there will not be “true seconds” wrestled at the qualifier. Again, Oliver must make the finals to qualify for the Olympics.

Every match for Jordan Oliver will essentially be the Olympic Trials Finals - winner moves on, loser goes home. Expect to see the most passionate wrestling take place in Bulgaria - dreams crushed or kept alive every match of every round. Oliver’s wrestling will begin Thursday, May 6th at 4am (ET) and the semi finals (the Olympic Qualifying round) are scheduled for 12pm (ET).