BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Bethlehem’s Darian Cruz will wrestle on Friday for an Olympic bronze medal.
Cruz, 29, will wrestle India’s Aman Sehrawat for one of the two bronze medals to be awarded at the Olympics in wrestling and several other sports.
The bronze-medal match will be at 2 p.m. Friday Eastern time.
In his opening-round match on Thursday, Cruz defeated Egypt’s Gamal Mohamed by fall in 2:30 in their 57-kilogram bout.
The unseeded Cruz did not fare as well in his quarterfinal match on Thursday, losing a 12-2 superior decision to No. 2 seeded Rei Higuchi of Japan.
Higuchi is among the world’s top wrestlers. He won a silver medal at the Olympics in Rio de Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2016. The past two years, he won a silver and gold medal at the World Championships.
However, despite losing to Higuchi, Cruz also benefited from the Japanese wrestler later Thursday.
Because of Higuchi’s win over Sehrawat in their semifinal match, advancing Higuchi to the gold medal match, Cruz advanced to the bronze medal match.
Cruz, the two-time PIAA champion at Bethlehem Catholic High School and NCAA champion at Lehigh University, is representing Puerto Rico to honor his grandparents, who are natives of the island.