Two Michigan wrestlers — Stevan Micic and Myles Amine, who both technically have one more year of college eligibility remaining — begin action at the Olympics Tuesday night. Both were born in the U.S., but thanks to their family heritage compete for other countries: Micic for Serbia and Amine for San Marino.

Although Micic missed the last college season due to injury, he has been a three-year starter at 133 pounds for the Wolverines, earning All-America honors in each of those campaigns, placing fourth at NCAAs in 2017, second the following year and third in 2018. He took an Olympic redshirt in 2019.

This past winter, Amine moved up from 174 pounds, where he competed his first four years on campus (including his redshirt as a true freshman), to 197, where he placed third nationally. That made him the seventh four-time All-American in program history — he finished among the top four at the NCAA Championships each campaign — and he could return next season to become the program’s first-ever five-timer.

A preview with some analysis of their Olympic draws is below.

According to MGoBlue.com, the first round is expected to start around 10:30 p.m. ET tonight, with quarterfinals beginning around midnight ET and semifinals around 5:15 a.m. ET Wednesday. NBCOlympics.com will provide live streams.

Micic has competed internationally for Serbia since 2018, and while doing so he has won a pair of bronze medals at the European Championships. He’s also the country’s first-ever Olympian in freestyle wrestler.

He qualified for the Olympics by placing fifth at the last World Championships (2019), and earned the No. 1 seed for the big stage by performing well in the rankings series events, including a pair of gold medals.

In the seedings points, the 25-year-old just barely finished ahead of Zaur Uguev of Russia, who won world gold in 2018 and 2019 (there was not a tournament in 2020) and is the prohibitive favorite. According to UWW, he’s riding a five-tournament, 16-match win streak.

In 2019, Micic lost the bronze-medal bout at World Championships to Nurislam Sanayev of Kazakhstan, 4-3, and the two-time world medalist (silver in 2018, bronze in 2019) is also among the big names entered into the star-studded field. Other accomplished wrestlers include former world champion Yuki Takahashi of Japan (2017), and former world medalists Suleyman Atli of Turkey (third in 2018, second in 2019), Mongolia’s Erdenebat Bekhbayar (bronze medal winner in 2015 and 2017), Thomas Gilman of the U.S. (silver medal in 2017) and Ravi Kumar of India (bronze in 2019).

Kumar is seeded fourth at 57 kilograms, so will be on the top side with Micic, meaning they will meet in the semifinals if both keep winning. Uguev and Atli are on the bottom half, so Micic will only see them in the finals if he keeps winning.

After the top four, all other wrestlers were randomly drawn into the bracket, and Micic received a brutal path — he’ll face Takahashi, the former world champ, in round one. The winner of that one will likely face Sanayev; he and Micic have split their two previous matchups.

In FloWrestling’s most recent international rankings, Micic checked in at No. 12, while first-round opponent Takahashi was No. 5 and likely quarterfinal foe (if he wins his first bout) Sanayev was No. 6.

Amine is not just the first-ever freestyle wrestler from his country to qualify for the Olympics, he’s actually the first from his country in any style. Like Micic, the 25-year-old also qualified for the Games based on his fifth-place finish at the 2019 World Championships.

By way of his performances in Rankings Series events, he earned the third seed for his weight. Amine has had some huge wins recently, including a pair of former world medalists at the most recent European Championships.

However, most eyes are going to be on another American wrestler, David Taylor, and his rival Hassan Yazdanicharati of Iran, who is a two-time world champion looking to win his second Olympic gold. However, Taylor — the 2018 world champion who will enter the Olympics unseeded — has beaten Yazdanicharati in their two matchups. Taylor did not compete at the 2019 World Championships, which Yazdanicharati won.

Indiana’s Deepak Punia is seeded second, while Russia’s Artur Naifonov is seeded fourth. Punia, who will be on Amine’s half of the bracket, is a 22-year-old phenom who won a junior world title in 2019 and then entered the senior-level competition and took second. Naifonov is a former world bronze medalist who narrowly beat Amine (2-0) at the 2021 European Championships.

Other big names entered in the field include Belarus’ Ali Shabanau, a four-time world bronze medalist (most recently in 2018), and Slovakia’s Boris Makoev, who lost to Yazdanicharati in the world finals in 2017.

Amine will face Columbia’s Carlos Izquierdo in the first round, who is currently ranked 13th in the world to Amine’s No. 4 per FloWrestling.

Unfortunately, a win there would likely set up a quarterfinal match with No. 1 Taylor, the former Penn State star who faces No. 5 Shabanau in round one. Again, Taylor is the favorite at this weight, so if Amine can overcome him he can beat anybody else in the bracket.

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