Winning 3 NCAA titles is more impressive than 1 olympic gold

[DF 181]

A wrestler could have one good/lucky tournament and win olympic gold. Some wrestlers have won gold by winning only 3 or 4 matches total at the olympic tournament.

 

But to put together 3 separate NCAA Div I tournaments against the best college wrestlers for gold each time is a far more difficult and impressive achievement.

[AnklePicker 649]

To win Olympic gold you first have to make the team. How many Olympic gold medalists have we had? How many 3 timers?

[The_Education 24]

To win Olympic gold, you have to qualify for the OTTs, then you have to win the OTTs (which is more difficult than winning an NCAA title), then you have to beat a bunch of senior-level national champions in a row. I'd say that's more impressive than winning three college-level national titles.

[SetonHallPirate 993]

After all, Abbas Jadidi never won an NCAA Tournament MATCH!

[DF 181]

To win Olympic gold you first have to make the team. How many Olympic gold medalists have we had? How many 3 timers?

 

You have to qualify for the NCAA tournament too you know.

That means the person who did it qualified 3 times and won it 3 times.

That's harder to do statistically speaking than winning 1 team trial and 1 olympic gold where you might only wrestle 3 matches at the olympic tournament.

[gimpeltf 2,085]

To win Olympic gold you first have to make the team. How many Olympic gold medalists have we had? How many 3 timers?

 

You have to qualify for the NCAA tournament too you know.

That means the person who did it qualified 3 times and won it 3 times.

That's harder to do statistically speaking than winning 1 team trial and 1 olympic gold where you might only wrestle 3 matches at the olympic tournament.

 

Not exactly the same level of talent pool.

[tec87 349]

[olddirty 346]

To win Olympic gold you first have to make the team. How many Olympic gold medalists have we had? How many 3 timers?

 

You have to qualify for the NCAA tournament too you know.

That means the person who did it qualified 3 times and won it 3 times.

That's harder to do statistically speaking than winning 1 team trial and 1 olympic gold where you might only wrestle 3 matches at the olympic tournament.

 

Yes but how many world medalists do you face at the NCAA's? You rag on Varner for an easy route to an Olympic medal, but how easy is it to beat kids with no medals in domestic competition? Im guessing Varner would say fairly easy

[dclark145 16]

cant forget, DF.. you can sue your way onto an Olympic team. Cant sue yourself into the NCAA tournament.

 

Case closed. NCAA's > Olympics, by far.

[Sheerstress 174]

You're talking about two different levels of competition. And as others are noting, you're not acknowledging the differences in the overall degrees of difficulty to get to the Olympic finals vs. the NCAA finals.

 

For the same reasons, would you say it's more impressive to win three high school state titles than winning one Div. I NCAA title?

[BigApple 86]

Melvin Douglas a 2-time NCAA, champ and 4-time world medalist and world champion had this to say when he came out of retirement to compete at the Sunkist International "NCAA champs are a dime a dozen here"

 

Winning 3 NCAA titles is an impressive feat. Most who do it were exceptional athletes in their young 20s. Olympic gold medalists are usually in their mid 20s and at their prime ohysically and mentally.

 

Freestyle wrestling and folkstyle wrestling are really different sports, whose skills in neutral easily transferred from one to another. Mat wrestling/par terre are completely different. There was a time when there was more commominality in par terre, but no more, now freestyle is almost completely wrestled in neutral.

[AnklePicker 649]

Completely different sports? The greats in folkstyle are often the same guys who become great in freestyle. And I wouldn't say free is "completely" wrestled in neutral. I'd think there are par terre turns in a majority of the freestyle matches wrestled overall.

[BigApple 86]

There is no forced par terre anymore in freestyle. There was 3 minutes of forced par terre in the bottom position for each wrestler as late as 1968. If a wrestler scrored a reverse he got the point, but then was then put back down. Yes there are some turns in par terre, right after a TD, but the refs give you only about 15 seconds to get it done.