712 Digital Group - top

Olympic wrestling snub doesn’t curb buzz in Iowa

Sports

February 15th, 2013 by Ric Hanson

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — For three hectic days in Des Moines, Iowans will too busy celebrating their love of wrestling to worry much about its Olympic future. Roughly 10,000 fans packed Wells Fargo Arena on Thursday morning for the opening session of the Iowa individual wrestling tournament — a 72-hour spectacle that will pack local freeways, restaurants and hotels and draw as many as 80,000 fans to the state capital. Surrounded by screaming fans, making “states” remains special for Iowa high school wrestlers. The tournament opens just days after the International Olympic Committee decided to cut the sport out of the Olympics in 2020.