NCAA Wrestling Championships 2011: Anthony Robles, One-Legged Wrestler, Wins 125-Pound Championship

First, let’s go over the semi-final results. The two winners in each of these divisions will wrestle for a national title tonight:

Here are the standouts for me:

But I wanted to get his thoughts on the national wrestling tournament first. We talked about what impact former national champion and Olympic gold medalist Cael Sanderson has as a coach for Nittany Lions, whether he cares about wrestling going head-to-head with college basketball in terms of getting media attraction and if he still has any relationship with the current squad for his alma mater. I also got his take on what kind of difference it will make for the wrestlers competing to not have this event held in the midwest.

Check out our short conversation below:

Before we kick off the quarterfinals for the 2011 NCAA Wrestling Championships in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, let’s go over a few news and notes. Attendance was high. MMA fighters got involved. Injuries sidelined the promise of previous champions.

First, some good news:

None of their wrestlers came into the tournament with top seeds. Yet, they may just leave with the title. Penn State under head coach and Olympic gold medalist Cael Sanderson is tearing up the 2011 NCAA Wrestling Championships early. They only sent one wrestler to the wrestlebacks and then went on a run. To wit:

It’s perfectly conceivable Penn State could send a few to the championship round and even take a few national titles, but it would be saying something about the Penn State wrestling program to take a national title. It would validate the investment in Sanderson and send a signal to the rest of the wrestling community a new powerhouse is emerging.

The results from Session 1 of the 2011 NCAA Wrestling Championships are starting to pour in. For all of the results, you have to seek out the NWCA Scorebook Stat Tracker. They’ve got the results for every match in every division in real time. Intermat’s also got some live coverage with an audio broadcast and live chat.

In terms of the expected, favorites Cam Simaz, Anthony Robles, Zachery Rey, Adam Hall, Christopher Honeycutt, Jon Reader, Jordan Burroughs, Darion Caldwell and Kellen Russell all won their opening matches. Hall had a bit of a harder time than expected and Simaz didn’t railroad Ryan Smith of Cal Ploy, but . Upstart David Taylor at 157lbs easily won his opening round match. Also of note is Bubba Jenkins of Arizona State who won his opening round match against Alex Medved of Garner Webb.

Today marks the beginning of the 2011 NCAA Wrestling Championships, to be held at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The tournament will run from today, March 17th to Saturday, March 19th. The location of Philadelphia is not by coincidence. Rather than hold the tournament somewhere in the midwest, where it’s sure to appeal to a dedicated audience, the NCAA is trying to expand the presence of collegiate wrestling with an East Coast city of higher population density. It seems regrettable that the premier event in college wrestling cannot be separated from the struggles the sport faces, but as college programs were axed just this week, the attention one gets cannot be appreciated in a vacuum.

There’s a lot to unpack here: divisions, returning champs, who was seeded where and which teams hold the strongest upset potential. I won’t overload you with details, but I’ve got you covered in terms of all of the information you could possibly need. Here goes.