I have to agree with him. Mixing the three groups in the schedule was confusing at best and detracted from fan enjoyment. It was poorly done imo, and if this is the best they could come up with with four years of planning, they need new faces on the committee. It was not well done.
2024 Olympic Trials match and discussion thread
- Thread starter backdrft76
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In some parts of the world, they would prefer to dump womens wrestling. In others, they would like to have more greco and less freestyle. There are many different opinions at play which is why wrestling has no traction to add weights right now. We are speaking with too many small voices rather than one big one.
Yeah he's probably not wrong. The only thing I would possibly disagree with is attendance. It was what I expected.
Love the optimism, but this sounds like a Jim Carrey movie, "Homer and Homerer."Our wrestler lost to our wrestler 😂. In the Olympic trials, that's when you realize just how great Penn State now has become. Wait until Paris when the NLWC crowns 4 gold medalists and RBY faces Spencer for Gold in a fifth.
I know this is wishful thinking, but with the reduced number of weights, I think a country could qualify more than one wrestler.
Allow runner-up trials wrestlers to go to Last Chance and have a set number of placers make the team.
Well, wrestling is the fastest growing women's sport in America.
Ticket prices seemed high as were hotel rooms. Parking, too. As great as it was to have in HV it does belong in a larger market and expect it to be in Fr. Worth in four years.
It is too bad that they mixed all the classes and weights up. So confusing.
Follow the NCAA setup. They make it work with 330 Wrestlers in three days. Drop the challenge bracket. They need to seed all wrestlers and let them compete instead of having guys sit and wait. Fans come to see the studs. Seed 16 spots for each class and have the best go on Saturday night but would be great to the Snyder’s on all three days! Screw the best of three.
I wouldn't worry too much about David. Fact is, he's got 3 little girls and a phenomenal wife. His priority, his family, is far bigger than wrestling. David has the world by the tail.
The stat they showed on TV yesterday was amazing. from 3000 to 36000 female HS wrestlers in something like 15 years.
Personally, I couldn't have been happier with this weekend. We are definitely spoiled as Penn State fans, and wrestling fans. I got to watch every match I wanted on Peacock or USA Network, and I never got timed out. Not many years ago, none of this was available. 1st World issues.
Why I hope Penn State gets a team asap.
A few of my observations/thoughts from the weekend:
- Adam Coon had murder in his eyes before his last match against Cohlton Schultz. So it wasn’t surprising when things got chippy.
- DT seemed like he wasn’t competing on all cylinders. Especially in match 1. Can’t really put my finger on it, but he just seemed off in some way.
- J’Den looked to be having fun in his first match, but his second was where he seemed different. After one last flurry with about :30 left, it was like the last bit of gas was burned in the motor and the motor shut off for good. Him retiring wasn’t a huge surprise to me considering he hasn’t competed a ton this past cycle. Good to see him get a standing ovation though.
- Guys we were sitting with were from the same town as Nick Lee. They talked with his mom before his best of 3 with Zain and apparently she said he’s gonna call time on his career soon and become a lawyer like his dad. She also supposedly said Zain will be calling it quits soon too.
- Spencer looked healthy and Gilman looked healthy too. It was good to see both of them competing at full strength again.
- I was a little surprised Adeline didn’t retire after losing to Kennedy. She’s got a lot of responsibilities in her personal life that seem to be impacting her performance.
- Manning did himself no favors by egging on the crowd after JB beat MM. It was like pouring gasoline on the fire. Though, that fan who yelled at JB and walked away from the railing before JB could respond should’ve been kicked out immediately.
- Saw tons of current and former star wrestlers around the arena. All were accessible and kind which was great. Even an intense wrestler like Forrest Molinari was happily signing autographs and taking pictures before the finals.
- Micah Parsons was in the front row of my section for the finals and my lord is he a large human. We’re about the same height, but he’s just a mountain of a man. He initially sat with a couple of other PSU guys I didn’t recognize. Then Carter came down to sit with him and David Carr followed shortly thereafter. Greg Kerkvliet made his way down too. PSU AD Pat Kraft and his family were in the front row too. He was high fiving and shaking hands with all of the PSU guys who came by.
- I feel good about the Men’s FS team. Seems pretty solid top to bottom. Same with the Women’s team. Helen looks to be in top form and Amit was as advertised. The Greco team seems fairly stout. Hopefully Coon can recapture his old form and medal for the US.
- Adam Coon had murder in his eyes before his last match against Cohlton Schultz. So it wasn’t surprising when things got chippy.
- DT seemed like he wasn’t competing on all cylinders. Especially in match 1. Can’t really put my finger on it, but he just seemed off in some way.
- J’Den looked to be having fun in his first match, but his second was where he seemed different. After one last flurry with about :30 left, it was like the last bit of gas was burned in the motor and the motor shut off for good. Him retiring wasn’t a huge surprise to me considering he hasn’t competed a ton this past cycle. Good to see him get a standing ovation though.
- Guys we were sitting with were from the same town as Nick Lee. They talked with his mom before his best of 3 with Zain and apparently she said he’s gonna call time on his career soon and become a lawyer like his dad. She also supposedly said Zain will be calling it quits soon too.
- Spencer looked healthy and Gilman looked healthy too. It was good to see both of them competing at full strength again.
- I was a little surprised Adeline didn’t retire after losing to Kennedy. She’s got a lot of responsibilities in her personal life that seem to be impacting her performance.
- Manning did himself no favors by egging on the crowd after JB beat MM. It was like pouring gasoline on the fire. Though, that fan who yelled at JB and walked away from the railing before JB could respond should’ve been kicked out immediately.
- Saw tons of current and former star wrestlers around the arena. All were accessible and kind which was great. Even an intense wrestler like Forrest Molinari was happily signing autographs and taking pictures before the finals.
- Micah Parsons was in the front row of my section for the finals and my lord is he a large human. We’re about the same height, but he’s just a mountain of a man. He initially sat with a couple of other PSU guys I didn’t recognize. Then Carter came down to sit with him and David Carr followed shortly thereafter. Greg Kerkvliet made his way down too. PSU AD Pat Kraft and his family were in the front row too. He was high fiving and shaking hands with all of the PSU guys who came by.
- I feel good about the Men’s FS team. Seems pretty solid top to bottom. Same with the Women’s team. Helen looks to be in top form and Amit was as advertised. The Greco team seems fairly stout. Hopefully Coon can recapture his old form and medal for the US.
yea, hate to say it. If not for my phone I would have been missing a lot within bjc. I mentioned earlier, bjc seems to be aged. Can't comment (yet) on the tv coverage yet
but... make no mistake... awesome two days!!
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I have no interest in women’s sports, it’s a less good version of the male counterpart.
Believe it or not many people look at it that way , because if women watched these events in similar numbers as men we wouldn’t even be having this conversation .
A few complaints:
- Whoever was in charge of the Jumbotron needs to seek other employment. We want to see names, score, bout clock and passivity clock. Not in small font and not in zoomed-in font that doesn’t show it all. We don’t need video of a match we can all see on the mat.
- The corner scoreboard locations made no sense. I couldn’t see them for mats 1 or 2 from my corner location.
- Session 2 was horribly organized. Use all the mats all the time so there’s always something we want to watch.
- A 1-1 double passivity match, especially in GR, needs to be a double disqualification from the tournament
- Know which matches the audience wants to see and organize it so every 3rd or 4th match is one of them
Quite a few guys have one foot in and one foot out now... Its a brutal sport that requires both feet in...
That ship has sailed for most.
That ship has sailed for most.
I had the opportunity to see the Big Tens or this . My Big Ten ticket cost me a fifty dollar donation and two , 2 day tickets were $50 each and parking cost $20 per day.
$190 for two people and two days of wrestling and I stayed at my sister’s house 20 miles away.
It would have cost me 5,6 times as much for this , I said no.
It was a long 2 days. I have absolutely no interest in Greco and little interest in Women's FS. I doubt I'd ever attended another Oly Trials if it was formatted like that again.
Great observations. The only thing I was surprised you said was to throw a fan out for yelling "career over".
I would add that the Taylor family was also “all class”. His girls screened their lungs out for “Dad” during the match. No crazy histrionics after he lost. That whole family is well grounded and have enjoyed a simply amazing run. The next chapter is already open. I will forever savor the memories of David’s freshman season. He has been and is the cornerstone of our program.
Session 1 was awesome. Session 3 was really good. Sessions 2 and 4 drug on for hours with wrestling I wasn’t interested in. GR is painful to watch. I mean it is awful. I couldn’t wait for AB-DT last night so I could get out of there. It got to the point where I was hoping it wouldn’t go three matches, and I’m a huge DT fan. Use all the mats in all the sessions in a rolling format so that someone is always wrestling on each. Short of that, I don’t think I’d attend again or maybe I’d attend just session 1, which was worth it.
Agreed. I was thinking that earlier. DT was the foundation Cael used to build this dynasty. From scrawny kid to Olympic champ at 86 kilos. What a highlight reel.
Wrestled 112# as a high school Junior (135# as a Senior)
Hoping someone can shed some light-men's freestyle:
1. Is the US National team composed of 4 wrestlers at each of the 6 Olympic weights?
2. What about the other four weights?
3. Do all team members train together for the Olympics?
4. Do all team members go to the Olympics- I know only one for each weight competes. at qualified weights.
5. Do all team members get to select their training partner, coach, cut man etc.?
6. Who are the head coaches for the team?
7. Where is the Olympic training site?
Damn those onions in the omelet this morning 😅 thanks for the memories, Mark
Yes
UWW will have a world championships this year too for the non-olympic weights. Team members above will have preference--forget the exact process of selection, can try to dig it up.
USAW will have a training camp--most, but probably not all team members will go. It's one of the perks of making the team.
No--usually just the competitor and his/her training partner--maybe also the 1st alternate, but I haven't seen if that's true.
Yep
Bill Zaddick is Head Coach for Men's Freestyle. Terry Steiner for the Women. Not sure on Greco
Colorado Springs.
The first alternate definitely goes. Can't forfeit the Olympics if the lead guy gets sick, or gets hurt, etc.
Beyond that, not sure.
Perhaps that was a bit harsh. That guy was an asshat though.
Another interesting tidbit I remembered I picked up over the weekend: the Peterson brothers didn’t invent the Peterson roll. This was directly from Ben Peterson himself. It’s apocryphal. He told me they learned the move while training and it had already been invented by a guy in New England whose last name also happened to be Peterson. The announcer for the international competition they were at dubbed it the Peterson roll and they were given the credit. He said he’s been trying to correct everyone ever since.
Nice interview with Zain. As Rob Koll once said, “Zain has always been one of the good guys in the sport.” Just a class act. Does anybody know what it will take for him to qualify the weight in Turkey? He looked fantastic this week. It would be incredible to see him close out his storied career on top.
For better or worse, the schedule was similar to PA states (until this year).
Friday night AA semis.
Saturday early morning weigh-ins for everybody, AA then sits around until 2 pm finals.
AAA semis start IIRC 8 am, then they sit around until 7 pm finals.
Are there big names he will need to compete against there? Or have the top guys at 65 and 57 for that matter already qualified?
There are always killers in this tourney—and these 2 weights have by far the most parity. Both will almost assuredly have to beat more than one world/olympic medalist to qualify. They can do it, but it’s not a gimme.
USA had to send their last 2 65kg trials winner (Molinaro & JO) to this, and fell short both times. Thankfully, Frank got in because guys ahead of him failed drug tests.
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Here is a list of countries that have/have not yet qualified for the Olympics:
2024 Olympic Wrestling Qualifiers - FloWrestling
Tracking the weights that are qualified for the 2024 Olympics in wrestling by country.
Without diving into who's from what countries, Lee probably has a tougher path. Some of the better countries have yet to qualify 57 kg: Iran, Cuba, Georgia, and a couple of the Stans. Most of the better countries have already qualified 65 kg; Japan and two Stans remain.
Caveat that, again, I haven't looked up the specific wrestlers from each country. Also, no idea which Russians are now expats elsewhere.
The wrestling media will do this analysis, probably in the next week or so. (They can't wait too long, with Last Chance in early May.)
Paging @zzs006Here is a list of countries that have/have not yet qualified for the Olympics:
2024 Olympic Wrestling Qualifiers - FloWrestling
Tracking the weights that are qualified for the 2024 Olympics in wrestling by country.www.flowrestling.org
Without diving into who's from what countries, Lee probably has a tougher path. Some of the better countries have yet to qualify 57 kg: Iran, Cuba, Georgia, and a couple of the Stans. Most of the better countries have already qualified 65 kg; Japan and two Stans remain.
Caveat that, again, I haven't looked up the specific wrestlers from each country. Also, no idea which Russians are now expats elsewhere.
The wrestling media will do this analysis, probably in the next week or so. (They can't wait too long, with Last Chance in early May.)
Of course attendance was terrible. They priced almost everyone out of going and dare I say every casual fan. The ticket prices were set in a range that most people will not tolerate and when you consider the price hotels were charging they eliminated most of those with more than 3 hour drive.
I'm a pretty big fan of wrestling and could have afforded this event but I don't like to pay for things when I feel like Im being ripped-off, especially when I have other options.
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I’ll see what I can dig up. Going to be tough but Zain looked good especially against Lee. Spencer looked really good I thought. I’m going on record and say they qualify but it’s going to be very very tough. I do think we have the 2 best guys to do it though. I wouldn’t be near as sure with anyone else wrestling at the last chance
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