Jordan Burroughs is back to dominate Olympic wrestling

Wrestling is back in the Olympics! Technically, wrestling never left the Olympics, but still: Wrestling is back in the Olympics!

In 2013, the IOC decided to remove wrestling from the Olympic program starting with the 2020 games, setting up the chance that the Rio Olympiad would be the last with wrestling. But the international wrestling community rallied, and after a vote, wrestling beat out sports such as baseball, squash, wakeboarding and karate for inclusion in future games.

Part of the reason wrestling was up for exclusion was the disparity between the number of men’s and women’s events. At the London Olympics, there were 14 medal events for men, seven each of freestyle (virtually the same as in American high schools and colleges) and Greco-Roman (a style modeled after ancient wrestling, with no grabs below the waist). There were only four medal events for women.

At these Olympics, there will 12 men’s events (six freestyle and six Greco-Roman) plus six women’s events. That’s great news for Team USA, which has some of the best women’s wrestlers on the planet. It’s still not perfect -- Helen Maroulis, who is the reigning world champion at her natural weight class, has had to cut weight to get to 53 kg because her natural 55-kg weight class isn’t part of the Olympic program -- but Team USA is in great shape. They should compete for four gold medals, which would be the most Team USA has gotten in one Olympics since 1924.

Jordan Burroughs, the reigning Olympic champion in the 74-kg freestyle weight class, is a damn problem. He’s 124-2 all time, and only has one loss since the last Olympics -- a fight in which he tried to wrestle with a sprained MCL. Burroughs will probably win gold, and he’ll probably be the only male wrestler to defend his title from London. The rest of the world is most likely fighting for silver.

Adeline Gray is a champion, and she finally gets to fight at her preferred weight. She cut nearly 30 pounds to qualify for the 2012 Olympics in the 63-kg weight class. It didn’t work, as she lost in the finals of the Team USA trials. But this time, her preferred 75-kg class is included in the Olympic program. There, she’s won gold medals at the 2014 and 2015 world championships. At last year’s World Championships in Las Vegas, she outscored her five opponents 49-4, with three shutouts. (That’s good.) Like Burroughs, she’s the overwhelming favorite for gold.

Maroulis’ road to gold will be harder than either Gray’s or Burroughs’, but she still has a great shot at gold. She won in the 55-kg weight class in Las Vegas last year and absolutely dominated the Olympic qualifying tourney this year at her new weight class, pinning her semifinal opponent in 28 seconds and winning the final 10-0. In Rio, however, Maroulis will likely have to face Japan’s Saori Yoshida, who has won three straight Olympic golds and 14 straight world championship golds at 53 kg.

Kyle Snyder is just 20, but in a sport where seniors win far more NCAA championships than sophomores, the Olympic rookie has a great chance at gold in the 97-kg freestyle weight class. He became the youngest American to win a world championship last year in Las Vegas, and he prevented 2012 gold medalist Jake Varner from another trip to the Olympics by defeating him in a best-of-three series at the Olympic trials.

Wrestling will take place most of the second week of the Olympics, starting Aug. 14 and ending Aug. 21.