What we learned about the strength of the college wrestling-to-Olympics pipeline after the Paris Games

Back in 2018, Iowa's Spencer Lee, Northwestern's Sebastian Rivera and Lehigh's Darian Cruz all competed together in the 125 pound bracket at the NCAA championships — Lee would go on to win that tournament to capture his first of three national titles for the Hawkeyes while Cruz was fifth and Rivera was sixth. 

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Six years later, those three athletes would share the stage again, this time at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Cruz and Lee stayed down at about 125 pounds (57kg) and finished second and fifth, respectively, while Rivera earned bronze up at 65kg.

Cruz, Lee and Rivera all battled their own unique ups and downs on their journey to Paris, but the road to the Olympics for all three of these athletes ran through college wrestling. Here's what we learned about the strength of that collegiate pipeline.

Collegiate success aids Olympic qualification 

This year's Olympic team included some of the most credentialed former U.S. collegiate wrestlers in history. The men's freestyle team featured two of the seven four-time Division I NCAA champions — Kyle Dake and Aaron Brooks — and two of the six multiple-time Hodge Trophy winners in history — Spencer Lee and Zain Retherford. Five of the six men's freestyle Olympians won the Hodge Trophy at least once in their careers. On the Greco side, two of the four Olympic reps — Adam Coon and Joe Rau — earned All-American honors at the NCAA level, with Rau taking home a DIII title in 2013 and Coon twice competing in the DI finals. 

The women's team also featured a number of former collegiate champions, including four multiple-time WCWA champions — Sarah Hildebrandt, Dom Parrish, Helen Maroulis and Kayla Miracle — and latest signee to Iowa's women's wrestling program, Kennedy Blades.

These credentials also don't even include the international athletes who found success through U.S. collegiate programs before competing in the Olympics. Cruz and Rivera both represented Puerto Rico in the Olympics after competing for Lehigh and Northwestern (and Rutgers) respectively during the college years. Cruz won a national title for the Mountain Hawks in 2017, while Rivera became a five-time All-American for the Wildcats and Scarlet Knights.

Penn State's Roman Bravo-Young, a three-time NCAA champion, also represented Mexico in the Games, while Michigan's Stevan Micic, Austin Gomez and Myles Amine qualified to compete for Serbia, Mexico and San Marino. Micic ultimately had to pull out of the Olympics due to injury, but he's expected to be back on the international scene after winning the World championships at 57kg in 2023. 

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Those who qualified for the Olympics were some of the most impressive athletes to ever come through the NCAA and the WCWA, and several of them translated that collegiate success to Olympic medals. 

Spencer Lee's and Kennedy Blades' silver medals add to Iowa's legacy in the Olympics 

Over a quarter of Team USA's wrestling medal count in Paris came from athletes with Iowa ties, both of whom were competing in their first Olympic Games. 

Spencer Lee, the more senior of Iowa's two medalists, completed his eligibility in 2023 after winning three national titles and two Hodge Trophies. He then punched his ticket to the Olympics by beating 2020/2021 Olympic bronze medalist and fellow Hawkeye Thomas Gilman at the Trials and qualified 57kg for the Games with dominance at the Last Chance Qualifier.

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Despite being unseeded coming in the Olympics, Lee's expectations to earn a medal were clear — he was there to chase gold. In his first few matches in Paris, Lee wrestled with the kind of power and force Iowa fans were used to seeing from him on the college stage. He topped Zou Wanhao of China, 3-2, in his first round match and then teched Bekzat Almaz Uulu of Kyrgyzstan and Gulomjon Abdullaev of Uzbekistan to advance to the final.

In the gold medal match against Rei Higuchi of Japan, Lee came up just short. He led 2-0 after the first period, but Higuchi took the lead after a takedown from a scramble situation. Higuchi's last two points came from another takedown off of Lee's last-second shot attempt. 

In his post-match interviews, Lee expressed frustration about the match and the result, but, by winning an Olympic medal of any color, Lee adds himself to an exclusive list of just 11 other Hawkeyes who have accomplished this feat, including his head coach Tom Brands and his associate head coach Terry Brands. 

Lee wouldn't be the last Hawkeye to make history, though. Kennedy Blades, who signed with Iowa just weeks before the Games, earned her own silver medal in her debut Olympics following a 3-1 loss to Yuka Kagami of Japan. Her performance makes her the first women in Iowa wrestling history to win an Olympic medal. 

Blades' success also creates momentum for the young star as she heads into her first college season with Iowa this fall. Previously a member of the Sunkist Wrestling Club, Blades now adds even more firepower to last year's NCWWC national championship team. 

Increasing women's wrestling Olympic medal count parallels increasing collegiate opportunities for athletes

Blades wasn't the only woman to come home from Paris with a medal, however. King alum Sarah Hildebrandt, as previously mentioned, captured gold at 50kg after finishing in third in 2021, and Simon Fraser alum Helen Maroulis became the first woman in history to win three Olympic medals with her bronze medal at 57kg.

Amit Elor, a 20-year-old athlete at 68kg, also won gold, making her the youngest Olympic wrestling gold medalist in Team USA history. Between Elor, Hildebrandt, Maroulis and Blades, the U.S. women brought home more medals than the US men. 

Currently, however, only four schools offer DI women's wrestling in comparison to over 70 DI men's programs, but 47 other schools do offer wrestling programs for women across the remaining two divisions. Women's wrestling is also newer to the Olympics, as 2004 was the first Games to offer a women's event. 

The rise in popularity of women's wrestling, both at the Olympic and collegiate level, though, is clear. Hildebrandt told that, as more programs continue to crop up, women's wrestling is only going to make the US stronger in Olympic Games to come. 

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"The growth in collegiate (wrestling), it's just going to take over," Hildebrandt said. "There's so much more opportunity now. There's so much support. It's exciting."  

Women's wrestling projects to have its first official NCAA championship event in Winter 2026, further strengthening the potential for the collegiate to Olympic pipeline for these athletes. In the meantime, women wrestlers around the country will to continue to compete in duals and other tournaments around the country as they prepare to start training for another quad.