UWW Announces "Seeding" Step

United World Wrestling has announced that for this year's Olympics, the 2015 finalists will be separated to opposite ends of the bracket. The "seeding" is only for the individuals and not the country so if someone were to lose their spot, it would then be blind draw for whoever beat them. 

The move is the first step away from the "blind draw with repechage" system that is one of the dumbest ways to run a tournament in the world.

I mean, have you ever looked at repechage? Last year at NCAA's at 197, McIntosh (Penn State) lost in the quarterfinals in an upset to Hartmann (Duke). Hartmann lost to eventual champ Gadson (Iowa State) in the semis. This would eliminate McIntosh from another match in repechage. Instead, he dominated his way back to 3rd as the upset to the Blue Devil was the only loss he had in March which included handling Snyder (Ohio State) in the Big Ten finals. Another example is how Brent Metcalf in four tries at the World Championships is yet to wrestle a consolation match yet. 

The system does not guarantee the top wrestlers are the ones on the podium other than the gold medalist. Seeding international wrestling would be incredibly tricky, but having some criteria to separate known top wrestlers should be seriously considered. 

UWW also made a slight change to the singlets allowing more freedom to have their country's colors more represented. It's a small step towards eventually doing away with the singlet and having the uniform color schemes similar to a home & away style you see in basketball & football.