Cook, Box, plus three Stanford wrestlers to compete in UWW Beach World Series in France, June 30

Mitchell Cook, shown at Silgar Beach in Spain in 2022, will compete in France on Friday. Photo courtesy of Mitchell Cook.


The USA will have a five-athlete team of men’s Beach wrestlers competing at the third UWW Beach World Series event of the 2023 season, set for Saint-Laurent-Du-Var, France on Friday, June 30.


The U.S. team will have a pair of talented and experienced competitors at 70 kg, Mitchell Cook of Illinois and Timothy Box of California.


Cook has been extremely active on the international Beach scene the last two seasons. Cook is currently ranked No. 6 in the World Beach Rankings at 70 kg. Cook competed in the second Beach World Series event of 2023 in Singapore in early June.


Box was a silver medalist at a 2019 Beach World Series event in Odessa, Ukraine, one of just four U.S. Senior athletes to ever reach the finals of a UWW Senior Beach event. He has not competed internationally since then.


The other three athletes competing are student-athletes at Stanford University, all competing at their first Beach World Series event.


Wrestling at 80 kg are Stanford wrestlers Daniel Cardenas of Colorado and Hunter Garvin of Iowa.


Cardenas was a 2023 Pac 12 champion at 157 pounds as a freshman and was named as the Pac-12 Newcomer of the Year by the conference. Garvin, who also was a freshman in 2023, was a three-time state champion in Iowa and one of the nation’s top recruits. Garvin was second at the 2023 U20 World Team Trials, while Cardenas was fourth.


Competing at 90 kg is Nikolas Stemmet of Illinois, who was a 2023 Pac-12 runner-up for Stanford in his junior season. Stemmet is a two-time NCAA qualifier for the Cardinal. Stemmet was a 2023 U23 Nationals champion in freestyle.


This Beach World Series event will be conducted in one day, Friday, June 30, with session times of 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. local time. Saint-Laurent-Du-Var is six hours ahead of U.S. Eastern time zone.


All of the action will be live on FloWrestling.

BEACH WORLD SERIES SAINT LAURENT DU VAR

At Saint-Laurent-Du-Var, France, June 30


U.S. Senior Men’s Roster

70 kg: Mitchell Cook, Orland Park, Ill.

70 kg: Timothy Box, Oceanside, Calif.

80 kg: Daniel Cardenas, Arvada, Colo.

80 kg: Hunter Garvin, Iowa City, Iowa

90 kg: Nikolas Stemmet, Yorkville, Ill.


Referee: Rick Schwab, Lawson, Mo.

Delegate: Rusty Davidson, Grants, N.M.

Schedule (six hours ahead of U.S. Eastern time zone)

Friday, June 30

10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. – Group rounds, all weight classes

3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. - Elimination rounds and finals