USA Wrestling released its rankings for the upcoming Olympic Trials in wrestling, and Four-time state champion Teshya Alo of Kamehameha is seeded second.
The trials will be held April 9-10 in Iowa City. Although Alo is already a member of the U.S. National Team, a victory in the tournament would put her one step closer to her dream of wrestling in the Olympics in Brazil this summer.
Alo, 18, was targeting 2020 for her Olympic dream but is way ahead of schedule and practiced three times today with coach Charles Ariola and Teniya and the rest of the Alo family made the trip.
The winner of this tournament goes on to qualifying, probably in Mongolia or Turkey. But that is the easy part. The hard part is getting out of the United States where Alli Ragan is boss.
Ragan, 24, has been on Team USA for two years and has a U.S. Open title to her credit but did not compete in the last one, which Alo won. Ragan faced Alo two years ago and beat her 9-1 in a physical match and beat her 8-3 before that.
Because they will be the top two seeds, they can’t face each other until the final. Alo’s potential semifinal matchup would be against Kelsey Campbell, a 2012 Olympian who was dominated 8-1 by Alo back in December. Ragan’s path is blocked by Kayla Miracle of Kentucky.
Here are those matches between Alo and Ragan, via Youtube:
Olympian and Roosevelt product Clarissa Chun is seeded third at 105.5 pounds, behind No. 1 Alyssa Lampe and No. 2 Victoria Anthony.
Here are the complete rankings, Alo and Chun won’t know their first-round opponents until Friday night after the seeding meeting, but they do know they won’t be facing anyone else in the top eight. Alo is in the biggest bracket, four girls will wrestle into the 16-athlete affair.
So basically a 22yr old adult wrestled a 16yr old teenager.. I have a feeling this time around will be different.