Youth News

MN/USA Wrestling Produces COVID-19 Preparedness Plan for Tournaments

MN/USA Wrestling has published a COVID-19 Preparedness Plan for MN/USA Wrestling Tournaments on their website along with the following statement:

“Minnesota/USA Wrestling is committed to providing a safe and healthy environment for all our members, workers, officials, coaches, parents, and participants. To ensure we have a safe and healthy environment, MN/USA Wrestling has developed the following COVID-19 Preparedness Plan in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Tournament organizers and hosts are all responsible for implementing this plan. Our goal is to mitigate the potential for transmission of COVID-19 in our tournaments and communities, and that requires full cooperation among our workers and management. Only through this cooperative effort can we establish and maintain the safety and health of all persons in our workplaces.”

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Training Schools and Camps Wrestling With COVID-19

By Brian Jerzak

Businesses around the nation have all had to deal with several changes during the last six months. The business of wrestling has had to adjust too. While high school and college programs have had many challenges, so have wrestling training facilities. How are these training facilities dealing with our new reality, and how are they planning for an uncertain future?

I talked with four wrestling training school owners and one wrestling camp director/coach to find out their thoughts on wrestling with COVID-19.

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With fate of high school wrestling pending, some organizations get creative

It’s been a tough summer on the mat for wrestlers of all ages due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Nick Lyden, president of Minnesota/USA Wrestling said watching many events and opportunities get canceled since mid-March has been a “gut-wrenching experience,” adding sports like wrestling provide numerous mental and physical benefits to kids and teenagers.

“I’m personally worried by the opportunities lost and those we may lose in the future,” he said. Continue reading at swnewsmedia.com

USA Wrestling Preseason Nationals, named for late Brian Keck, set for Oct. 30-Nov. 1

USA Wrestling has named its popular Preseason Nationals tournament after the late Brian Keck, who helped create the event and served as its event director for more than a decade.

The 2020 USA Wrestling Brian Keck Memorial Preseason Nationals will return to Hyvee Hall inside the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa, October 30 – November 1.

Keck worked with USA Wrestling to found the Preseason Nationals in 2008, a major early season national folkstyle wrestling event for athletes of all ages. The first event was held in Des Moines, then spent nine years in Cedar Falls, Iowa, before returning to Des Moines in 2018. During its 12 years with Keck’s involvement, the competition grew in size and prestige.

Keck tragically passed away at the age 48 during a trip to Mexico in November, 2019.

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Contact sports face special challenges to restart in the COVID-19 era

The nature of some sports dictates that hard contact isn’t going to ease up, so it will be up to COVID-19 testers to be gatekeepers of sorts. And that might not be enough to keep seasons viable.

Football players ram into each other to begin a play and usually end it with a collision that brings a ball carrier to the ground.

Hockey players pin each other against the boards with body checks and use any physical means necessary to separate an opponent from the puck.

Wrestlers square off inches apart, then almost immediately grab arms, bump heads and exert themselves in face-to-face contact, often breathing the same air for six minutes or more.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials have stressed social distancing to combat the deadly virus, which is largely spread through infected droplets from coughing, sneezing and talking. But for contact sports, social distancing isn’t a workable option. Continue reading at startribune.com