Saturday 11 May the wrestler Frank Chamizo will show up on the mats of Istanbul to go hunting for the Olympic qualification for the Paris 2024 Games. After the events in Baku, the Italian has additional motivation and is targeting his third career participation in the Olympics, but to achieve it will have to finish among the top three positions in the 74 kg freestyle at the World Pre-Olympic.
An undertaking that is certainly not simple, but far from impossible considering the potential of the Italian-Cuban compared to the rest of the competition present in the Turkish capital. The Rio 2016 Olympic bronze (in -65 kg) he wasn’t particularly lucky in the drawhaving to immediately face the insidious Chinese in the first round Feng Lu (#1 seeding, based on the convoluted UWW ranking mechanism). In perspective, however, it could have been even worse, given that the two rivals probably most popular on paper (the Slovakian Salkazanov and the Turkish host Demirtas) were placed on the opposite side of the scoreboard.
Chamizo, in case of victory on his debut, will face the winner of the match between the Bulgarian Ramazanov and the Kyrgyz Toktomambetov in the round of 16 and then potentially face one between the Armenian Alikhanyan and the strong Georgian Kentchadze in the quarterfinals. The possible opponent in the semi-final (with the five-ring pass at stake) could ultimately be the Frenchman Khadjiev, the Hungarian Kuramagomedov, the Moldovan Shapiev, the Kazakh Kaipanov or the Tajik Rassadin.
