The US Open - and in a few weeks, the Team Trials - is better than it’s ever been. The sheer volume of super high quality wrestlers entered in these tournaments surpasses anything we’ve seen before - and we can thank USA Wrestling’s decision to focus on development a decade ago, as well as the emergence of Regional Training Centers (specifically, the donor dollars pouring into these RTCs).
Consider the anticipated 2020 Olympic Trials lineup for 74kg, as compared to the 2012 version, as illustrated in the table below:
Half of the 2012 field were college undergrads, including top seed Andrew Howe.