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Why "Social Media" is great....

Joe Rau has set up a gofundme, asking to cover legal fees for his appeal of his Olympit trials loss. In his words...

Recently in the finals of the Olympic Trials, after I had already qualified the weight for Team USA for the Olympics, I had a referee with a clear bias and was deprived of a fair match. The referee had direct affiliation to my opponent: he had wrestled for the same senior team when he was a competitor. Inexplicably, my coaches’ request for a different referee prior to the match was denied. The match ended up being conducted and officiated unfairly.

I don't believe the match in question is online, only the second match. $3,800+ has already been contributed toward the $20k goal.

Even without seeing the match in question (it doesn't appear to be available online), I'm skeptical he'll prevail, because a successful appeal would necessarily condemn the actions of that referee, and how exactly can a fact-finder determine that a referee acted with bias? The starting presumption is that every match after a hand is raised is far, and you need a lot to overcome that presumption. Whether that ref should've called that match at all, I don't know, but Rau says they asked for a recusal prior to the match and were denied.

I believe the dispute is over the ref awarding Rau's opponent, John Stefanowicz (who I believe, btw, is the stepbrother of Chance Marsteller), 2 caution points from a Rau head pinch the ref deemed to be too tight, which effectively gave Stefanowicz the win. I recall on Twitter people being critical of how that match was called. Rau lost the second match 2-1, which is available online.
 
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Then what happened?
Nervous laughter from my end. But I still have it.

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