Ruiz wins gold as U.S. claims four medals at Granma Cup in Cuba
Gary Abbott\/USA Wrestling<\/p>\n
Justin Ruiz (Colorado Springs, Colo.\/New York AC) claimed a gold medal at 96 kg\/211.5 pounds, one of four U.S. Greco-Roman wrestlers to win a medal at the Granma Cup in Sancti Spiritus, Cuba, Feb. 21-22.<\/p>\n
Claiming a silver medal for the U.S. was 2004 Olympian Brad Vering (Colorado Springs, Colo.\/New York AC) at 84 kg\/185 lbs.<\/p>\n
Winning bronze medals were Lindsey Durlacher (Colorado Springs, Colo.\/New York AC) at 55 kg\/121 lbs. and Ryan Cunningham (Quantico, Va.\/U.S. Marines) at 74 kg\/163 lbs.<\/p>\n
Ruiz won three matches on the way to his gold medal victory. He defeated Cuban opponents in all three bouts. Ruiz opened with a 3-0, 1-0 decision over Vallegas of Cuba. In the semifinals, he pinned Fuste of Cuba in 1:00. In the gold-medal finals, he defeated Lopez of Cuba, 1-0, 1-0.<\/p>\n
Ruiz was a member of the 2003 U.S. World and Pan American Games teams. He placed second at the 2004 U.S. Olympic Team Trials.<\/p>\n
Vering had a 2-1 record in the tournament. He opened with a 3-1, 3-0 decision over Sato of Chile. In the semifinals, he stopped Escobar of Cuba in three periods, 0-1, 1-0, 1-0. In the gold-medal finals, against former World champion Luis Mendez of Cuba, Vering dropped a 1-0, 1-0 decision. Mendez scored his point in the first period on a caution, and scored from the clinch after the second period.<\/p>\n
Durlacher won two of his three matches in the tournament. He opened with a three-period win over an opponent from Venezuela, 1-0, 0-1, 1-0. In the semifinals, he lost to past World Champion Lazaro Rivas of Cuba, 1-0, 4-0. In the bronze-medal match, Durlacher stopped Ramires of the Dominican Republic, 0-5, 2-0, 1-0.<\/p>\n
Cunningham opened the tournament with a loss by pin in the second period to Shorey of Cuba. U.S. wrestler Mike Ellsworth (Colorado Springs, Colo.\/Michigan WC) also lost to Shorey in the next round, 4-0, 4-0.<\/p>\n
With a bronze medal on the line, Cunningham defeated Ellsworth by a 1-0, 5-1 margin. The loss placed Ellsworth in fifth place.<\/p>\n
Under the new international rules, two bronze medals are awarded in each weight class.<\/p>\n
Two U.S. wrestlers competed in two weight divisions and were allowed to wrestle both days. Ellsworth competed at both 66 kg\/145.5 lbs. and 74 kg\/163 lbs. Also wrestling in two divisions was Jeremy McLean (Quantico, Va.\/U.S. Marines), who wrestled at both 55 kg\/121 lbs. and 60 kg\/132 lbs.<\/p>\n
The Cerro Pelado Tournament for freestyle wrestling is also being held in Sancti Spiritus, Cuba, Feb. 23-24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ruiz wins gold as U.S. claims four medals at Granma Cup in CubaGary Abbott\/USA Wrestling Justin Ruiz (Colorado Springs, Colo.\/New York AC) claimed a gold medal at 96 kg\/211.5 pounds, one of four U.S. Greco-Roman wrestlers to win a medal at the Granma Cup in Sancti Spiritus, Cuba, Feb. 21-22. Claiming a silver medal for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2B7Di-7m","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}