Gopher Wrestling Club

GWC Athletes Prepare For World Cup

MINNEAPOLIS – Gopher Wrestling Club athletes Daniel DeShazer and Hayden Zillmer are set to travel to Coralville, Iowa, this weekend as they prepare to compete in the 2022 World Cup as members of Team USA.

Hayden Zillmer joins the lineup at 125 kilograms alongside Nick Gwiazdowski at 125 kilograms, fresh off his appearance at the 2022 World Wrestling Championships this past summer in Belgrade, Serbia. National team member Daniel DeShazer will represent the stars and stripes at 61 kilograms, joining fellow American Seth Gross at the weight.

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USA Wrestling announces its teams for Mens and Womens Freestyle World Cup

USA Wrestling has announced its lineups for both its men’s freestyle and women’s freestyle teams which will compete at the Men’s and Women’s Freestyle World Cup at Xtream Arena in Coralville, Iowa, Dec. 10-11.

The World Cup is the annual international dual meet championships, conducted by United World Wrestling. The top five teams in men’s freestyle and the top five teams in women’s freestyle from the 2022 Senior World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia in September have confirmed their participation. There is also an All-World Team in each discipline, featuring the top available athlete from the World Championships in each weight class that were not from a nation which qualified for the World Cup.

The U.S. World Cup teams will feature two Olympic champions, four World champions and 10 past World medalists. It will also include a number of talented young stars who are making an impact internationally.

The men’s freestyle team will feature a pair of Olympic and World champions, Jordan Burroughs at 79 kg and Kyle Snyder at 97 kg. Burroughs is a 2012 Olympic champion, a six-time World champion and has won 10 career World and Olympic medals. Burroughs is the first U.S. wrestler to win seven World and Olympic titles. Snyder is a 2016 Olympic champion, 2020 Olympic silver medalist, a two-time World champion and has won eight career World and Olympic medals.

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Nagao places 5th at U23 World Championships as Competition Wraps

PONTEVEDRA, Spain – A week full of action that saw a pair of Gophers competing in the U23 World Championships came to a close on Sunday morning, as Gopher freshman Aaron Nagao closed out the weekend with a fifth-place finish.

Action began on Monday morning for Greco-Roman competition, as Michial Foy was slated to compete in the 87-kilogram weight division. He opened up his first World Championships against Croatia’s Filip Smetko, falling by a score of 4-0.

The turning point in the match was Smetko’s ability to convert in par terre position, as he used a gut wrench in the first period to turn Foy following a passivity point to give Foy a three-point deficit going into the break. Following the loss, Foy would need Smetko to reach the finals in order to be pulled back in to repechage, however Smetko would drop his next match and Foy would be eliminated after going 0-1.

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Foy, Nagao to Represent Team USA at U23 World Championships

MINNEAPOLIS – A pair of current Gophers will be heading overseas in hopes of becoming a world champion, as both Michial Foy and Aaron Nagao will compete in the U23 World Championships in Pontevedra, Spain next week.

Foy, a sixth-year senior for Minnesota, will be competing on Monday morning at 87 kilograms as the Greco-Roman portion of the tournament gets underway. Foy earned his ticket to the World Championships by winning the 87-kilogram bracket at the U23 World Team Trials earlier this summer, beating opponent Vincent Baker in the Best-of-3 finals.

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Zillmer goes 2-1 at World Championships

Gopher Wrestling Club’s Hayden Zillmer, in his first Senior World Championships appearance, earned two wins to advance to the quarterfinals. There, he dropped a 9-4 bout to two-time Olympic medalist and three-time World champion Geno Petriashvili from Georgia.

Zillmer was eliminated from the tournament when Petriashvili was upset in the semifinals by Lkhagvagerel Munkhtur of Mongolia, failing to pull Zillmer into repechage.

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Gopher Wrestling Club Names Troy Steiner as New RTC Head Coach

MINNEAPOLIS – Minnesota’s regional training center will have a new head coach at the helm, as Gopher Wrestling Club announced on Monday afternoon that Troy Steiner will take over as head coach.

The announcement comes at the heels of former head coach Dustin Schlatter’s resignation to pursue opportunities outside of the sport, as Gopher Wrestling Club is set for a busy end to the freestyle season with athletes competing in both the Senior World Championships and U23 World Championships later this fall.

Steiner, who was a 1992 NCAA Champion and a nine-time U.S. freestyle national team member, returns to the Gopher wrestling room with nearly 30 years of coaching experience. He previously spent a one-year stint in Minneapolis from 1996-1997, where he acted as an assistant coach for the Gophers as well as the state freestyle coach for Minnesota Storm.

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Schlatter Steps Down as Head Coach of Gopher Wrestling Club

MINNEAPOLIS – After 17 years in the Minnesota wrestling room, Gopher Wrestling Club (GWC) head coach Dustin Schlatter has decided to step down to pursue other opportunities outside of the sport, as announced by the club on Friday afternoon.

Since taking the helm of the regional training center in May 2018, Schlatter helped lead GWC to its first Olympic gold medalist and first World Team member, and has had at least one athlete qualify for Final X to compete for a World Team spot in each year of his tenure. In the previous Olympic cycle, Gopher Wrestling Club qualified eight athletes for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team Trials under Schlatter.

Most recently, Gopher Wrestling Club has become the standard at the 125-kilogram weight class by housing the best heavyweight wrestlers in the nation the past two seasons. In 2021, Gable Steveson won the gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics with a win over Georgia’s Geno Petriashvili, before Hayden Zillmer punched his ticket to the 2022 World Championships in Serbia with a best-of-three series win over Nick Gwiazdowski at Final X this past June.

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Burroughs goes three to beat Marsteller, Four make first World Team as 14 win their series at Final X New York

Gopher Wrestling Club’s Zillmer takes out two-time World bronze medalist Gwiazdowski

NEW YORK, N.Y.. – There were 14 more members of the 2022 U.S. Senior World Team set on Wednesday night, punching their ticket to Belgrade, Serbia for the 2022 Senior World Championships, five in each of the men’s freestyle and Greco-Roman and four in women’s freestyle.

It was a wild night of action in the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden, as Final X New York was held before a large and boisterous crowd. Three of the best-of-three championships series were pushed to a full three matches, including one featuring one of the greatest wrestlers in history, 2012 Olympic champion and five-time World champion Jordan Burroughs at 79 kg in men’s freestyle.

Burroughs won his opening match against Chance Marsteller, who was competing in his first Final X finals. However, in the second bout, Marsteller showed had great tactics and exceptional defense, and secured a 2-2 criteria decision over Burroughs.

In the deciding third match, Burroughs got things going well with a step out point to lead 1-0. He added two more step outs in the first period to lead 3-0 at the break. In the second period, Burroughs scored his patented low double leg takedown on the edge for a takedown for a 5-0 lead in the second period., which held up the rest of the way. Continue reading at teamusa.org →