The month of July has featured quite a bit of international competition - and medals - for Spartan Combat RTC wrestlers.
First up was Vince Cornella, who earned gold at the U20 Pan American Championships in Mexico with a dominant 3-0 performance that featured a pair of 10-0 technical falls and a finals pin.
Then, it was Senior Freestyle World Team member Yianni Diakomihalis taking the mat at the Zouhaier Sghaier Ranking Series tournament in Tunisia at 65 kg. The rising Cornell senior defeated Olympian Agustín Destribats of Argentina, 9-2, and then finished strong with a 15-5 technical fall over Adlan Askarov of Kazakhstan in his final match during his silver medal showing.
Big Red All-American Jonathan Loew collected a pair of medals at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, capturing silver in Greco Roman before taking gold in Freestyle at 86 kg, defeating a former World U23 silver medalist in the finals.
A few days later, Vito Arujau earned bronze at the Ziolkowski/Poland Open at 57 kg, ending with a dominant 12-2 technical fall over Gio Gegeloshvili of Georgia in the medal match.
The opportunity to bring more hardware back to Ithaca is upcoming with more overseas competition on the horizon:
--Cornella will take the mat in Bulgaria in mid-August at the U20 World Championships (65 kg)
--Diakomihalis will compete at the Senior Worlds in Serbia in September and then again at the U23 World Championships in Spain in October (65 kg)
--Kyle Dake will compete at Senior Worlds in Serbia in September (74 kg)
--Youssif Hemida will take the mat for Team Egypt at Senior Worlds in Serbia at heavyweight
--Arujau will wrestle for Team USA at the U23 Worlds in Spain (57 kg), as will Jacob Cardenas (92 kg) and Phil Moomey (60 kg Greco Roman)