USA Wrestling announces that 2020 Olympic Trials are postponed

A day after the NCAA Wrestling Championships were cancelled, USA Wrestling announced that the U.S. Olympic Trials have been postponed.

The sport's national governing body released a statement Friday that the two-day event, originally scheduled for April 4-5 at Penn State's Bryce Jordan Center, will be postponed due to the "ever-changing impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19)."

"(Out) of concern for the health and wellbeing of athletes, fans, staff and the community, USA Wrestling, Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics, the Bryce Jordan Center and U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee have collectively decided to postpone the U.S. Olympic Team Trials," the statement read.

It continued: "Organizers are working closely with local officials and health experts in hopes of rescheduling the event at the Bryce Jordan Center."

A number of wrestlers with Iowa ties have already qualified for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials. Among them:

• Iowa junior Spencer Lee;
• Iowa State redshirt freshman David Carr;
• former Hawkeye wrestlers and current Hawkeye Wrestling Club members Thomas Gilman and Sammy Brooks;
• former Cyclone wrestlers Pat Downey and Kyven Gadson;
• former Northern Iowa wrestler Joe Colon;
• current Hawkeye Wrestling Club members Alli Ragan, Kayla Miracle and Forrest Molinari;
• and former Ballard High School wrestler Rachel Watters.

The NCAA announced Thursday the cancellation of the wrestling national championships amid growing concerns of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The winners of the Division I national tournament, which had been scheduled for next week at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, automatically qualified for the Olympic Trials.

Even more, the NAIA also announced the cancellation of all remaining winter sports championships, which included the women's wrestling national invitational, originally scheduled for this weekend. The champions there also qualified for the Olympic Trials.

Other international wrestling events have been effected due to COVID-19.

On Wednesday, United World Wrestling, the sport's international governing body, said the European Qualifier for the 2020 Olympics, originally scheduled for March 19-22 in Budapest, as well as the Last Chance Olympic Games Qualifier, set for April 30-May 3 in Bulgaria, were also postponed until mid-May and early June, respectively.

"We are closely monitoring the governmental response to COVID-19 and will continue provide updates to our wrestlers, coaches, and fans with more information as it becomes available," United World Wrestling president Nenad Lalovic said in a release.

"The process for determining our Olympic participants will happen on the field of play, but we need to remain patient and vigilant as the worldwide community battles this pandemic. The health and well-being of the athletes is an absolute priority."

The International Olympic Committee said Thursday that it still plans to hold the 2020 Olympic Games, set to begin July 24 in Tokyo.

"The International Olympic Committee confirms its full commitment to the success of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020," the statement read. "We remain absolutely in line with our Japanese hosts in our commitment to delivering safe Olympic Games in July this year.

"… the many measures being taken now by authorities all around the world give us confidence and keep us fully committed to delivering Olympic Games that can bring the world together in peace.

The statement continued: "We remain in close contact with the World Health Organization, the host city of Tokyo, the government of Japan and the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee through our joint task force, which was set up in mid-February.

"The IOC will continue to follow the advice of WHO, as the leading United Nations agency on this topic."

USA Wrestling originally announced Thursday that it hoped all other trials qualifying events and other age-level world-team trials events would remain on schedule, but that "All options will be considered in this process," according to its Thursday statement.

The UWW Cadet world team trials are set for April 21-23 in Las Vegas. The UWW Junior and U23 world team trials are set for May 29-31 in Ohio. The women's age-level world team trials are scheduled for May 8 in Texas.

The Last Chance Olympic Trials Qualifier, originally set for March 27-28 in Millersville, Penn., was also postponed in a separate release. A new date and location not been determined, but it will not be hosted in Millersville.

USA Wrestling also asked ticket holders to keep their tickets until future event details can be finalized.

Cody Goodwin covers wrestling and high school sports for the Des Moines Register. Follow him on Twitter at @codygoodwin.

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