Takedown Report

Mensah-Stock wins gold at World Championships; USA has three women World champions for the first time

By Gary Abbott, USA Wrestling | Sept. 20, 2019,
NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan – It was another historic night for the U.S. women’s freestyle program, as Tamyra Mensah-Stock (Colorado Springs, Colo./Titan Mercury WC/OPTC) claimed the gold medal at 68 kg/149.5 lbs. at World Wrestling Championships. Mensah-Stock showed skill, power and poise in the gold-medal finals, where she defeated 2012 World champion and 2016 Olympic bronze medalist Jenny Fransson of Sweden in the gold-medal finals on Friday night, 8-2. This is the first time that USA Wrestling has had three World Champions in women’s freestyle the same year. Mensah-Stock joined five-time World champion Adeline Gray at 76 kg and Jacarra Winchester at 55 kg at the top of the podium this year. Three previous times, the USA had a pair of World champions in women’s freestyle the same year. They were in 1999 (Tricia Saunders and Sandra Bacher), 2012 (Adeline Gray and Elena Pirozhkova) and 2015 (Helen Maroulis and Adeline Gray). Mensah-Stock’s final was typical of the kind to high-caliber wrestling she had done all of 2019, where she has been unbeaten all year. Her offense was excellent in the first period, as she scored on three different takedown attacks to take a 6-0 lead into the break. In the second period, when Fransson hit a headlock for two points, Mensah-Stock came out with a reversal. Sweden challenged the call, hoping for more points, but it was denied on video review, giving Mensah-Stock her final point. Fransson’s attempts for an upper body throw in the closing moments were blocked effectively. Mensah-Stock punched her ticket to the finals with a dominant 10-0 technical fall over Anna Schell of Germany in the semifinals on Thursday night. Rest of the story at https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2019/September/20/Mensah-Stock-wins-World-gold-medal?mc_cid=86d95781f8&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

September 27, 2019 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized