By Allen Smith
You might ask, what in the world does this topic have to do with Penn State wrestling, clearly the focus of the Penn State Wrestling Club. Fair question!
If fans knew the process, everything having to do with Olympic Wrestling, and the number of past and present Penn State wrestlers currently involved for the upcoming Olympics, I’m hopeful that they would conclude, as I have, that there is a definite connection. I’m here to break down the process into bite size chunks, hopefully easy-to-understand, so fans don’t have to scour the internet looking for pieces of the puzzle. Trust me; it would be time-consuming to do. So here, in one relatively short article you can find what you need, at least I hope so! And if you want more, you can always email me at asmith684@verizon.net.
Before starting, take a look at the Penn State wrestling schedule. After the Hofstra dual on December 10, there is nothing until the Oregon State dual on January 5, 2024. That’s not an accident. Don’t be surprised if several Penn State wrestlers register and compete at the Senior Nationals on December 15-17, 2023 in Fort Worth, Texas. This is one leg of the process wrestlers must go through to qualify for the Olympic Trials next April. All those details are noted later in this article, I just wanted to give you one way that Penn State wrestling is already connected to Olympic wrestling process!
The 2024 Olympics shall be held in Paris, France during the summer of 2024. The exact dates, start to finish are July 24, 2024 through August 11, 2024. The wrestling piece of the sports schedule starts August 5 and runs through the final day, August 11. However, the process for our country and for the wrestlers hopeful to represent her starts long before that. In fact, it has already begun. Below are, as promised, the pieces of the process, broken down into bite-size nuggets.
Olympic Wrestling Weight Classes
Olympic Wrestling consists of three disciplines, Men’s Freestyle, Women’s Freestyle and Greco-Roman. Each has six weight classes. I personally follow all three, but will focus mostly on Men’s Freestyle for this article (as that is where the Penn State guys, past and present will be) with a few mentions of the other two disciplines. You can apply all or most of what is written here to the other two disciplines.
Hard to believe it was all the way back in 1996 when Men’s Freestyle last consisted of 10 weight classes in the Olympics, matching what is currently done at World Championships in the years between Olympic years. Then in 2000, the number of weight classes at the Olympics was reduced to eight. Every Olympics since then has consisted of six weight classes for Men’s Freestyle. In 2004, Women’s Freestyle was introduced and has been a staple since.
I mention moving from 10 weight classes to six, as this “compression” of weights has caused a dilemma for the “tweener” guys, those wrestling at 61kg, 70kg, 79kg or 92kg in years other than Olympic years. They must decide to go up or down a weight just to compete for an Olympic spot, where the weight classes are; 57kg, 65kg, 74kg, 86kg, 97kg and 125kg. It is a significant challenge for wrestlers in that position. To name a wrestler affected, one has to look no further than past Penn State great Zain Retherford, the 2023 World Champion at 70kgs, who must decide on 65kg or 74kg. The effect is that our country’s wrestlers are concentrated into six weight classes, making the field more talented per weight class than at 10 weight classes. However, winning the World Championship does have its advantages, so Retherford’s situation is discussed later in this article.
Country Qualification – 16 Spots at Each Weight Class
You are reading this subheading correctly. COUNTRIES qualify EACH WEIGHT for the Olympics. They do so by wrestlers from that country finishing at a certain placement in pre-determined tournaments. For each Olympic cycle, the process could change from the previous Olympics. Such is the case for the 2024 qualification process; it was tweaked from the 2020 Olympics, but not much, and not worth noting here. What is unchanged is that there are only 16 wrestlers in each weight class at the Olympics. 16 is a nice number for a bracketed tournament.
The first Olympic qualifier tournament was the 2023 World Wrestling Championships. Five countries earned spots for each of the six weight classes of Men’s Freestyle. All medal winners (Gold, Silver, 2 Bronzes) earned spots, plus the losers of the two Bronze Medal matches wrestled off for a fifth spot. That’s where we are today, in the month of November, 2023. As an example, at 57kg, the following five countries have earned spots at the 2024 Olympics; Albania, Armenia, Authorized Neutral Athletes, Japan and Serbia. The United States has yet to earn a spot at 57kg.
No world-wide wrestlers for any country are noted on the grid, or chart, that shows the qualifications. That’s because once a country earns the spot it cannot be taken away, and that country can send the wrestler of their choosing. Some countries allow the wrestler that earned the spot to go at the Olympics. Others do it different ways. The United States uses the Olympic Trials, held next April 19-20 at the Bryce Jordan Center in State College to determine our country’s wrestling representatives. Of course if the United States has not earned a place at the Olympics for a given weight class, the Olympic Trials will have far less meaning at that weight class.
Hopefully that made sense. To bring it closer to home, and use real life; Kyle Dake (74kg, 2nd at the 2023 World Championships), David Taylor (86kg, 1st at the World Championships), Kyle Snyder (97kg, 3rd at the World Championships), and Mason Parris (125kg, 3rd at the World Championships) each earned spots for the United States. Our country has yet to qualify 57kg and 65kg, and USA Wrestling will be very selective in who is sent to the remaining qualification tournaments, as qualification is a critical and very necessary first step. To round out the United States’ qualifications in the other disciplines, Women’s Freestyle has qualified three weight classes, while Greco-Roman qualified none at the 2023 World Championships.
This leads us into the remaining qualification tournaments, as the world heads towards the final count of 16 countries for each weight class. First, the world is split into four regions, each having a qualification tournament. The two finalists in each of the four tournaments earn their country a spot, adding eight to each weight class. With the five noted above, the total is now 13 per weight class. The four regional tournaments are; 2024 Pan American Qualification Tournament, 2024 African & Oceania Qualification Tournament, 2024 European Qualification Tournament, and the 2024 Asian Qualification Tournament. The United States shall send a wrestler to the Pan American Qualification Tournament (March 15-17, 2024) at 57kg and 65kg. Any country already qualified at a weight cannot send a wrestler at that weight class, so the United States will not send wrestlers at the other four weight classes. It is likely, barring something unforeseen, that the United States will qualify the final two weights in Men’s Freestyle at the 2024 Pan American Qualification Tournament.
Then the final qualification tournament is the 2024 World Qualification Tournament, also called the Last Chance Tournament, held May 9–12, 2024 in Istanbul, Turkey. Three countries will earn spots at each weight class, with any country previously earning a spot disallowed from sending a wrestler at that weight class. Finalists and a wrestle off between the two third place finishers will determine the three. Add these three to the 13 above, and the total countries qualified for each weight class is now complete at 16 wrestlers per weight class.
The United States Representative – 2024 Olympic Trials
Thus far, 39 United States’ wrestlers have earned the right to wrestle for the top spot at the six Men’s Freestyle weight classes. There is no magic number for each weight class at the Olympic Trials, to be held April 19-20, 2024 at the Bryce Jordan Center on the campus of Penn State University. Some wrestlers will have multiple criteria in their favor; others may meet a criteria and decide not to wrestle at the Trials, causing the number of qualified wrestlers to be different at each weight. As an example; a name on the list at 65kg, Logan Stieber, is eligible by virtue of being a 2018 World Team member, but he has since retired.
The 39 wrestlers represent a variety of criteria. Such criteria includes; past World Team members, U17 (under-17) World Champions, U20 (Under-20) World Champions, U23 (Under-23) World Champions, or top-4 finishers (highest USA finisher, one per weight) at the recent Bill Farrell Open.
In December of this year, the top-5 finishers at Senior Nationals (also called the U.S. Olympic Trials Qualifier) will also earn a spot, significantly increasing the overall qualifier list. Only the top-5 can qualify, so if a wrestler is already qualified and finishes top-5, the 6th place finisher does not earn qualification. This tournament is held December 15-17, 2023 in Fort Worth, Texas. The final four qualifications for Olympic Trial entry are; the 2024 Pan American Championships champion, the 2024 Pan American Olympic Qualifier (wrestler who qualifies weight), 2024 NCAA Division I champion, and the 2024 Final Olympic Trials Qualifier champion.
A ballpark number of competitors at the Olympic Trials will be in the 14-18 range per weight
class.
Penn State Wrestlers Past & Present, Nittany Lion Club Wrestling (NLWC)
Now for the information that will tie this article to Penn State wrestling. I will list the current qualifiers linked to the Penn State program, and even include the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club guys that were not part of Penn State past or present. Six past or present Penn State wrestlers are among the 39 already qualified for the Olympic Trials, and another three are NLWC guys with no past affiliation. Nick Lee, Zain Retherford, Mitchell Mesenbrink, Jason Nolf, David Taylor and Aaron Brooks are qualified. Two of those six are current Penn State wrestlers, Mesenbrink and Brooks. Others from the NLWC include; Thomas Gilman, Kyle Dake, and Kyle Snyder, giving the Trials a local flavor already with nine of the 39 qualified wrestlers training here in the State College area. That is amazing, but the story doesn’t end there. The future qualification tournaments previously noted will surely end with more wrestlers with Penn State roots
qualified, and the final product – those that will represent the United States in Paris – could have a decidedly local flavor.
Well, that is all there is to the 2024 Olympic Wrestling process. It is my hope that you enjoyed the article, provided by me and the Penn State Wrestling Club. Time goes by quickly, so many of us will be following the action at the freestyle tournaments mentioned, and ultimately the Olympic coverage.
