The 2024 Olympic Wrestling Trials scheduled for April 19-20 at Penn State’s Bryce Jordan Center will provide the sport’s followers not only with the opportunity to see world-class Olympic athletes but also a chance to once again watch some of the best wrestlers to ever wear a Penn State uniform. In some cases, those are one and the same.
Penn State graduate David Taylor is a reigning Olympic gold medalist, and he and former Nittany Lion star Zain Retherford both earned world titles last fall. They’ll join former Penn State standouts Jason Nolf, Nick Lee, Nico Megaludis, and Mark Hall as well as some current team members such as Aaron Brooks and Beau Bartlett, and possibly Carter Starocci, Levi Haines, and Greg Kerkvliet if they qualify in late March by winning a 2024 NCAA title and opt to participate.
The Trials will determine the eighteen wrestlers who will represent the United States in the Summer Olympics in Paris July 26-Aug. 11 in the sport’s three styles of competition—men’s and women’s freestyle and Greco-Roman.
Yet there’s so much more. The intensity of the sport itself. The pressure that comes with the competition for the right to represent the U.S. Six-minute matches that include no overtime; someone will win on criteria after a bout that ends in a tie. And a glossary of freestyle terms such as leg lace, gut wrench, passivity, par terre, back exposure, and technical superiority, all of which differ from collegiate folkstyle wrestling.
Taylor is a 2014 Penn State graduate who won two NCAA gold medals and two silvers and now competes for the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club. He became a U.S. star on the international scene by winning three World Championships and a 2021 Olympic gold medal, and he aptly put into perspective what fans can expect to see at the Trials.
“I just think for the casual fan, or you’re a Penn State fan that’s followed Penn State wrestling for years, think about all the best wrestlers you’ve seen come through Penn State the last fifteen years and put them in one bracket,” he says. “Then you take in all the best wrestlers you see at the NCAAs and all the best wrestlers you’ve seen in the United States in the last ten years and you add them to that same bracket.
“And then you take ten weight classes at the NCAAs and take ten weight classes at the World Championships and you shrink that to six weight classes, and that’s what you see at the Olympic Trials.”
Collegiate wrestlers have ten weight classes, ranging from 125 to 285 pounds. The World Championships also offer ten classes, measured in kilograms, from 57kg to 125kg, or 125.5 to 275.5 pounds. The Olympics offer only six weight classes, which makes for difficult decisions for wrestlers to go up or down in weight and even more difficult competition overall.
“What’s at stake is an opportunity to go to the Olympics,” Taylor continues. “It’s a once in every four years event and for many of us, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So when you’re thinking about the intensity, I think that’s a picture that you kind of paint and then you’ve got people who are going out there trying to fulfill those goals.”
Taylor’s former college coach is current Penn State coach Cael Sanderson, who was an unbeaten (159-0) four-time champion for Iowa State and a 2004 Olympic champion. Representing the U.S. is the pinnacle of the sport, Sanderson says.
“I think there’s the aspect of representing your country, but I think even greater than that, you’re trying to be the best in the world,” he says.
“In our country especially, you have to beat some of the best guys in the world just to make the team. It’s important for these kids, obviously, and it’s just one of those moments where you get put to the test and get to see if you can be true to what you want and who you are, so I think it’s super exciting.”
PREPARING TO BE GOOD HOSTS
Competition at this level brings family and fans to town from not only around the county but around the country, and State College is ready, according to Eric Engelbarts of the Happy Valley Sports and Entertainment Alliance. The last ticket sales estimate he knew was over 10,000 series tickets sold. His office uses that information in an event impact calculator to estimate the economic impact on the Centre County region.
“We input how many people we anticipate coming into town and any of the other factors that we can input into the system and then it gives us an estimated economic impact number,” Engelbarts explains. “We have a direct visitor spend of $4.9 million and the indirect, or induced, is just over $2 million. What we’re anticipating for the total economic impact for the Olympic Trials is just a touch over $7 million.”
He says hotels are filling and his office is working with USA Wrestling, which administers the event, to book blocks of rooms for staff, athletes, and media. “They’re filling up quite a few properties and when you add in the additional mom, dad, grandma, grandpa coming in to watch their athlete compete, we’ll be at a near sell-out probably for two if not three nights,” according to Engelbarts.
Downtown signage is planned to welcome the athletes and visitors, and the plan is for fans to be able to leave their cars parked at the Jordan Center and shuttle to the downtown area.
“We’re working with Penn State Athletics to see how we can make that happen and do a Downtown Improvement District-sponsored shuttle that will continue to go around [from the arena to downtown and back],” says Lee Anne Jeffries, president of the Downtown State College Improvement District.
“The idea behind the shuttle is to get as many people as possible downtown and make it as easy as possible. I know that businesses will be excited with open doors to welcome our guests.”
TRIALS WILL HAVE STYLES
The many attendees expected are most accustomed to collegiate, or folkstyle, wrestling. Freestyle, on the other hand, puts an emphasis on takedowns and exposing an opponent’s back to the mat, no matter how quickly or from what angle.
Men’s Olympic freestyle weight classes are 57kg, 65kg, 74kg, 86kg, 97kg, and 125kg, and women’s weights are 50kg, 53kg, 57kg, 62kg, 68kg, and 76kg. Greco-Roman classes are 60kg, 67kg, 77kg, 87kg, 97kg, and 130kg and its competitors must take down opponents with upper-body throws; no moves below the waist are permitted.
MANY FAMILIAR FACES
The Nittany Lion Wrestling Club will be well-represented, and some current team members are highly likely to compete. Jeff Byers, the radio voice of Penn State’s wrestling team and sports talk show host on 98.7FM in State College, says it will be exciting for fans to be able to watch wrestlers they’ve seen compete collegiately compete on a bigger stage for the right to represent their country.
The catch is when they face each other. “From a fan perspective, I think it’s pretty tough to try to choose who to root for,” Byers says. “Usually, it’s easy; it’s the guy who’s in the Penn State singlet.
“The Nittany Lion Wrestling Club will be extremely well represented. The timing really couldn’t be better when you look at the number of Penn State alumni and then Nittany Lion Wrestling Club members combined who will be in this event.”
Taylor and his NLWC teammates Kyle Snyder and Kyle Dake each receive a bye to the best-of-three finals on April 20 because they are reigning World Championship place-winners in their weight classes.
While Taylor can’t guarantee it, he’s of the belief that he could wrestle against current Nittany Lion and NCAA champion Aaron Brooks in the 86kg finals. Wrestling against NLWC teammates and Nittany Lions can be difficult, but Taylor says there’s a reason behind it.
“I just think it’s a testament to what Coach Cael has built at Penn State,” he says. “You have generation after generation after generation of talent. And as we graduate, we want to stick around. As the older generation helps the newer generation, inevitably they’re going to compete and that’s just the natural evolution of a great program.
“I wouldn’t be where I am without my training partners, and my training partners wouldn’t be where they are without wrestling with me. And I think that’s just the approach that we all kind of take at the Penn State Nittany Lion Wrestling Club.”
This is Taylor’s fourth Olympic Trials. He advanced to the worldwide event and won the gold medal in the 2020 Olympics that were held in 2021 because of COVID-19.
“I think with each one you grow to appreciate that opportunity more and more, because with each one, potentially could be your last one,” he says. “Myself, every time I step out there, I’m representing Penn State, I’m representing my family, and ultimately, I want to represent our country.
“As a wrestler, as a young kid, that’s just what you dream about, holding an American flag as you’re running around the mat with an Olympic gold medal around your neck. … There’s no better feeling.”
A few hundred wrestlers will get the opportunity to advance to the Olympics during the Trials at Penn State. As the thousands who will be in attendance will see, only eighteen will succeed. T&G
Jim Carlson is a freelance writer living in State College.
