High school sports |

Mead’s Otto Black wins gold at Pan-American Championships

From the moment that Otto Black first joined Colorado Top Team and Mead wrestling, he raised the bar for two programs that were already teeming with talent. He hasn’t stopped making the Mavericks proud, even after his graduation.

Last week, with a brace on his right knee, the 18-year-old won the gold at the U-20 Pan-American Championships in Lima, Peru, after defeating the other 63-kilogram grapplers in the Greco-Roman division.

He easily handled Brazil’s Vitor Medeiros with a 9-0 decision, then faced tough competition from his fellow Top Team teammate, Zachary Marrero. Marrero, who represented Puerto Rico, eventually fell in a 2-0 finale. Black dominated his final match of the competition against Ecuador’s Patrick Rodriguez with a 14-3 decision.

“If you win that, you’re the best in the continent and it’s good going into the world championships this year,” Black said. “It gives me a good confidence boost and I was pretty excited to win.

“I just feel like no one really wrestles like me. I have a weird style. I’m not like hard, hard all the way. I kind of surprise people with stuff, and I definitely have different technique than most people. Most people in America, basically, it’s a lot of hand fighting, a lot of bullying. But I kind of honed a couple techniques that I have and most people don’t expect me to do it, like a duck, a reach around where you jump over them. I just like being creative. I feel like I’m a more creative wrestler than most people.”

The victory qualified Black for the World Championships, which are set to take place in Spain in September. Earlier this year, he also collected golds at the Las Vegas Open and the World Team Trials.

His Top Team coach, Leister Bowling III, believes that Black has a special talent for the sport. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the last American to win a Greco-Roman world championship (in 2006), Joe Warren, also coaches with Top Team.

“He’s got an innate ability to break down Greco wrestling,” Bowling said. “He sees techniques that other people don’t see. It really doesn’t matter what style it is. He’s like a cat. He can kind of figure it out. He’s got a really unique ability to just wrestle. But Greco in particular, he has a very advanced brain, really, to understand what’s happening out there and when the right time is to pop his hips and explode.

“To have somebody that’s been there and won at the highest level helping him has been instrumental to his growth, his structure, the system in place. He went from always kind of winning to now just dominating. He’s unstoppable in the U.S. He’s the only American to ever win the Tallinn Open in Estonia. He won it twice.”

Black will head to the University of Iowa in the fall to join one of the top-ranked collegiate programs in the country.