Sometimes the coin flip goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t. In Lindsey’s case, his second bout in the wrestle-backs was his lucky match. In a closely wrestled duel against a Romanian opponent, Lindsey won all three coin flips. In the first round nobody scored, giving Lindsey the victory. The second round was a repeat of the first except that Lindsey lost a point when he did not lock on his opponent promptly enough to satisfy the official. The third period held true to form and Lindsey picks up a victory without scoring an offensive point.
Lindsey’s final opponent was a wrestler from Serbia. This was where his luck ran out, or rather, the coin flip didn’t matter, since his Serbian opponent managed to score on him in both periods while Lindsey couldn’t mount any offense of his own. Although I’m sure he’s disappointed, Lindsey was able to lock up a spot for the U.S. in his weight class at next year’s Olympics.
Before Harry Lester’s bronze medal match, the other bronze medal match in his weight class (they aware two bronze medals for each weight – don’t ask me, we’re living in FILA’s world here). In that other match, one of the wrestlers is from Armenia. The Azerbaijani crowd is now has a full head of steam as they are booing everything associated with the Armenian wrestlers. Generally I think wrestlers tune out most of what’s coming out of the crowd, but this is so pervasive that I’m certain it must be getting through to him. After winning the first period, he lost the second on a penalty in which I’m certain the official was influenced by the Azerbaijani fans. In the final period he was taken down to his back and appeared to simply give up as the crowd cheered and jeered him. I truly felt bad for him.
Harry Lester came out firing away in his final match, although he looks a little different with his head nearly completely covered in a bandage due to an injury he suffered in his last match. Quickly into the match he received one point on a push out when the score clock went blank. After a few minutes they got things up again, put ten seconds on the clock and awarded Harry his point. Lester added to his lead late in the period when he countered a desperate attack, scoring a takedown to secure a 3-1 first period win. As quickly as his first period came, his second period takedown came equally late. With only three seconds remaining before the clinch, Harry scored on a spin around takedown. With no other offensive points scored the remainder of the match, this sealed Harry Lester’s win for the bronze medal!
