U.S. Greco-Roman wrestling team captures first world title

Fort Carson wrestler Dremiel Byers wanted redemption. He got it Wednesday and, in the process, helped the U.S. wrestling team make history.

Byers’ win in the 264.5-pound Greco-Roman bronze-medal match at the World Wrestling Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan, propelled the U.S. to its first Greco-Roman world title.

The U.S. totaled 31 points, one more than Russia, whose star wrestler Khasan Baroev was upset by Cuba’s Mijial Lopez in the gold-medal match.

Earlier this week, Brad Vering (185 pounds) won a silver medal, Harry Lester[CQ] (145.5) won a bronze medal and Lindsey Durlacher (121) took fifth. Vering and Durlacher are Colorado Springs residents.

The previous best finish by the U.S. at the world championships was third in 2001 and 2006.

In 2006, Byers’ second-round loss to Turkey’s Ismael Guzel in a controversial match cost the Americans the team title.

This time, Byers, the 2002 world champion, didn’t leave anything to chance, winning a 1-1, 2-0, 2-1 decision over France’s Yannick Sczzepaniak after he lost to Baroev 1-1, 4-0 in the semifinals.

“I’m really happy right now,” said Byers, a member of the World Class Athlete Program at Fort Carson. “It feels great to get it done. Last year was bad, and I was glad I could shake some of that off. We’re walking away with something special, real special.”

Lester praised Byers for his resiliency.

“Dremiel was way overdue for a medal,” he said. “I feel better about his medal than I do about mine....He is the backbone of our team and carried us to a world championship.”

Top-eight finishes by Byers, Vering, Lester and Durlacher mean the U.S. has qualified four Greco-Roman weight classes for the 2008 Beijing Games.

Colorado Springs wrestlers T.C. Dantzler (163) and Justin Ruiz (211.5) and 132-pounder Joe Betterman, a replacement for Colorado Springs’ Joe Warren, finished outside the top eight.

They have three more opportunities to qualify their weight classes for Beijing, starting with the Pan American Championships, which are Feb. 29 to March 2, 2008, in Colorado Springs.

Warren, the 2006 world champion at 132 pounds, did not travel to Baku after he agreed to a provisional sanction from the Colorado Springs-based U.S. Anti-Doping Agency for testing positive for marijuana. An upcoming arbitration hearing will determine the length of his suspension.

“It was a little bittersweet,” Warren said. “That’s my team, and I was upset that I was not able to be there with them. But it doesn’t matter about me. It’s about the team.”

In men’s freestyle, Colorado Springs wrestler Henry Cejudo lost to Iran’s Taghi Dadashi 1-0, 4-0 in the first round. The Coronado High School graduate was coming off a gold medal at the Pan American Games.

Six Colorado Springs wrestlers will compete in women’s freestyle, which begins Friday. The most notable is Kristie Marano, a bronze medalist at 158.5 pounds at the 2006 world championships.