USA Greco

Kamal’s Run to Bronze Ends One Match Early

By 5PM Staff

Posted on September 19, 2025

kamal bey, spenser mango, 2025 world championships

Kamal Bey & Spenser Mango -- Photo: Tony Rotundo

A sizzling victory in the opening round of repechage put Olympian Kamal Bey (77 kg, Army/WCAP) one match away from competing for a bronze medal — but a questionable sequence towards the conclusion of Bey’s second bout resulted in a decision loss that ended his tournament earlier than either he or the US had hoped.

not all roads lead to gold, athlete and coach devotional

The repechage round on Day 2 of the 2025 World Championships began at 10:30am local time from Zagreb, Croatia (4:30am ET) and streamed live on FLOWrestling.

On Thursday, Bey dropped a heartbreaking 2-1 decision in the qualification round to recent World Champion/Olympic medalist Malkhas Amoyan of Armenia. However, Amoyan advanced all the way to the 77 kg final, which represented a second chance for Bey to come away with his first Senior World medal if he could somehow go undefeated on the consolation side of the bracket.

That journey began this morning as Bey — an Olympian last year for Team USA — faced off with ’17 World runner-up Mateusz Bernatek (POL). In what was an exciting contest as far as the scoreboard was concerned, Bey went on a tear in the second period to the tune of a nine unanswered points en-route to an 11-2 VSU at the expense of Bernatek.

The triumph over Bernatek meant that that Bey stood just six minutes (or less) away from securing a spot in the bronze-medal round. Occupying the opposite corner was 82 kg ’24 World bronze Ahmet Yilmaz (TUR) — the third consecutive World medalist in this tournament who he would face in Zagreb.

And Bey did not waste any time in asserting himself. Soon after the first whistle, he zipped inside on Yilmaz from a duck-under to attack the body and score a takedown. Yilmaz defended from bottom to get a reset but the US had a 2-0 lead. Later in the period, Bey surrendered a step-out point before being called for passivity. The American stymied Yilmaz’s offensive measures from top par terre and thus walked into the break owning a 2-2 criteria lead.

Bey aggressively pursued Yilmaz as the second period got underway, and indeed came close to scoring at the edge; but in a flash, Yilmaz pivoted and pushed forth to net another step-out point. Eventually, the Turk was awarded his second passivity point. He again could not muster a turn against Bey but he did have a 4-2 lead with time a factor. With under :30 to go, Bey darted into Yilmaz off of a clean duck-under and crashed with a body attack off the edge that certainly had all of the makings of a two-point correct throw, which would have provided for him a 4-4 lead via criteria. The officials agreed and distributed the points to Bey’s side of the board. But — the Turkish corner wanted a challenge and, upon review, it was determined that Bey had committed a leg foul. Amid the initial action, Bey’s left arm had barely and briefly made contact with Yilmaz’s right leg. The contact was instantaneous as well as inadvertent, and often such occurrences are not construed as leg fouls unless such contact has beyond a reasonable doubt influenced the outcome of the action. Bey’s contact with Yilmaz’s leg did not appear consequential, but the officials deemed otherwise and so the two points for Bey were wiped off the scoreboard.

Bey breathlessly hunted Yilmaz down in search of a multi-point maneuver as the match hurried towards its conclusion but he was unsuccessful in his efforts. Yilmaz took the 4-2 decision and later today will greet Alireza Abdevali (IRI) in the bronze-medal round.