Henson Wins Gold; Guerrero and Kading Win Silver at the 2001 Poland Open in Brzeg Dolny, Poland, Mar

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Heather Van Peursem (USA Wrestling)
03/13/2001


Henson wins gold; Guerrero and Kading win silver at the 2001 Poland Open in Brzeg Dolny, Poland, March 11      2000 Olympic Silver medalist Sammie Henson (Norman, Okla./Sunkist Kids) won the gold medal and Eric Guerrero (Stillwater, Okla./Sunkist Kids) and John Kading (Lincoln, Neb./Wildcat WC) won silver medals at the 2001 Poland Open in Brzeg Dolny, Poland, March 11.     This is the second international competition Henson has won in one week. He won the Yasar Dogu Tournament in Ankara, Turkey March 3. Henson breezed through his pool with a pin over Kim Jong-Dae of Korea and a 11-3 decision over Igor Skilsky of Poland. He then won by two technical falls in the semifinals and the finals with a 10-0 victory over Sylvester Wojtak of Poland and a 11-0 score over Rafal Baron of Poland to win the gold medal.     Guerrero won his pool with two decisions. First over Viktor Wilokopytnyj of Ukraine, 8-5, then over Danny Felix (Norman, Okla./Sunkist Kids), 2-1 in overtime. He won a close 6-5 decision over Wasilij Fedoryszyn of Ukraine in the semifinals, then lost a decision to Song Jae-Myung of Korea, 4-3 in the gold-medal match. Guerrero placed third at the 2000 U.S. Olympic Trials.     Kading scored two decisions in his pool, first over Marcin Poplawski of Poland, 6-2, then over Choi Dong-Ja of Korea, 6-0. In the quarterfinals, he decisioned Kamil Choleva of Slovakia, 3-0, then pinned Michal Stanislawski of Poland in the semifinals. In the gold-medal match, he lost a close 2-0 decision in overtime to Marcin Jurecki of Poland. Kading is currently ranked No. 5 in the United States.      Four other members of the U.S. team placed in the top 10 at their respective weight classes. U.S. Olympic Training Center resident athletes Ty Reynolds (Colorado Springs, Colo./Unattached) and Joe Calavitta (Colorado Springs, Colo./Unattached)  finished in sixth and seventh place respectively at 138.75 pounds. Fellow resident athlete Ramico Blackmon (Colorado Springs, Colo./Team Excel) placed tenth at 152 pounds.   Orville Palmer (Norman, Okla./Sunkist Kids) finished in sixth place at 213.75 pounds.     The U.S. placed second as a team with 139 points. Korea won the team title with 233 points.