Michigan Wolverines well represented in hunt for Olympic gold in wrestling
Ann Arbor — That’s the vision of Sean Bormet, the former Michigan wrestler who was the Wolverines’ head coach for the past seven seasons when he took over the program.
He was determined to create the best wrestling environment in the world.
Now the world will get a glimpse of Michigan wrestling at the Olympics, as five graduates will compete from four countries, including Mason Parris and Adam Coon, who secured the heavyweight spots on the 2024 U.S. Olympic team. No other university in the United States has produced as many wrestlers for these Olympics.
Parris, the 2023 NCAA heavyweight champion, will compete in freestyle at 125 kg, and Coon, a Fowlerville native who graduated from Michigan in 2018 and earned a master’s degree in engineering in 2019, will compete in Greco-Roman at 130 kg. This will be the first Olympics for both heavyweights.
Myles Amine, a Brighton native who graduated from Detroit Catholic Central, has two Michigan degrees and won the 2020 Olympic bronze medal (the Games were held in 2021). He represents San Marino in the 86 kg freestyle. Stevan Micic, who also has two Michigan degrees and was the 2023 world champion in the 57 kg freestyle, competes for Serbia. Austin Gomez, who graduated from Michigan this year and was a two-time NCAA All-American, will represent Mexico in the 65 kg freestyle. All but Micic have been training in Ann Arbor ahead of the Olympics.
“I feel like we’re getting to the point where all five guys are in their places at the Olympics in Paris and we’re seeing the whole thing come to fruition,” Bormet said of fulfilling his goal of building a world-class program. “For these guys to take that next step to achieve the goals they’ve had since the beginning of their sports careers is just really special.”
Bormet and his assistants will be in Paris to support the five wrestlers and train one of the athletes at a time. Bormet will train Amine. Wrestling will take place in the second half of the Olympics, with Coon competing first on August 5 and Gomez competing last on August 11.
Coon found himself at a crossroads in wrestling when he earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic Greco-Roman team but failed to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games through the World Olympic Qualifiers.
“To say I was devastated would be an understatement,” said Coon, who decided to pursue a career as a professional football player before eventually returning to wrestling and fulfilling dreams he had had since childhood.
He was drawn to the sport from a young age and was in first grade when he learned that American wrestler Rulon Gardner had defeated three-time reigning Olympic champion Aleksandr Karelin to win the gold medal in Greco-Roman heavyweight wrestling at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
“When I heard the big guy could do it,” said Coon, a three-time NCAA All-American, “I wanted to be the big guy to do it.”
Parris also always had heavyweight goals. He wanted to win the Indiana state high school title, and while at Lawrenceburg High he won three state titles in the 220-pound class. He came to Michigan and set his sights on a national title. He won an NCAA national title in 2023 and also the Hodge Trophy, wrestling’s version of the Heisman Trophy.
“When I achieve a goal, I’m happy for a few weeks,” Parris said. “Now I want to go to the Olympics. All I can think about is becoming an Olympic champion and hearing the national anthem when I get my medal. That would be a dream come true and something I’ve dreamed of since I was a little boy watching wrestling and the Olympics.”
He doesn’t think he’ll realize he’s an Olympian until long after the Olympics.
“When I’m older, I’ll say, ‘That was cool. I went to the Olympics,'” Parris said. “It’s an incredible experience that not many people get to have.”
Six weeks before the Olympic Games, Amine’s countdown began.
“A year is too far away, even 90 days, but I felt like after 50 days it’s a daily thing, so it will matter now,” Amine said.
And that’s when his nerves actually started to play a role.
“I know how hard I have to train to achieve my goal because I’ve always been very process-oriented. If I come here and am lazy during training, it can make all the difference. I really have to focus on the moment as much as possible. I’ve really trained myself to be very calm and as zen-like as possible to conserve that energy because in games, seconds can count.”
Amine has already won a medal at the Olympic Games and has been able to draw on a lot of this experience in his preparations for these Games.
“If I could describe it in one word, it would be gratitude,” Amine said of representing San Marino, a small country in central Italy. “The first Olympics, I was younger and a little more nervous. I had the desire to win a gold medal, but the second time around, I feel like all of that is still there, but on top of that, there is gratitude. It made the whole process – I don’t want to say easier, because to say that training for the Olympics is easy doesn’t do it justice – but it just made it more pleasant to wake up and know that this is an opportunity and not an obligation.”
Gomez trained twice a day, five days a week, and then once a day on weekends to prepare for the Olympic Games, where he represented Mexico.
“I believe I can win,” Gomez said. “If I didn’t believe I could win, then I shouldn’t be going to the Olympics. I just control what I can do, control my drive, my effort, my attitude and my work ethic and leave everything else to God. That’s all I can do. But I think we’re all going to come back with medals. Michigan will bring back five alumni with medals, and that speaks volumes about the coaching staff here and the resources we have at the University of Michigan.”
About a dozen family members will cheer Coon on in Paris.
“You realize this is a great opportunity and very few people get the chance to wear USA on their chest and represent their country,” Coon said. “I want to make the USA proud.”
And their goal is to make Bormet and Michigan proud.
“It’s the first time a college has produced five Olympians, but we’re so in the thick of training and I’m up there managing a lot of the logistics and pulling everything together that I almost never stop to really take a deep breath and evaluate all of this,” Bormet said a few weeks before his trip to the Olympics. “So I don’t really think about how rare and how special this is, but it’s definitely very exciting for our program and everyone associated with our program and the university.”
Bormet said creating the world-class environment he sought at Michigan helps with recruiting, saying the program attracts top recruits who want to win NCAA titles and also Olympic gold because its former graduates who compete on the world stage still train in Ann Arbor.
“It’s so much work to gather the resources,” he said. “I couldn’t be more grateful to our alumni, our fan base and the people who support us. As our resources have grown, so has our success, and that’s the most important message.”
“Results really do bring results. That takes resources because we need to support these guys financially so they can focus on training and competing. We also need to bring the best coaches in the world into that room. We need to bring in some of the best training partners in the world to train with them. And all of that, all of that impacts the college program.”
Coon said it’s about wanting to give back to the program that allowed them to be successful while competing for Michigan.
“That’s why we stay here and help the younger guys who benefit from us being here and constantly training with them,” Coon said. “But at the same time, we benefit ourselves. We get to compete at the highest level and we’re constantly pushing each other to outperform each other, but at the same time, we’re pushing each other to make sure we’re all at our absolute maximum. So it’s just a great situation to have us here. It really shows that what we’re doing is going in the right direction and we’re continuing to push it to make sure our program stays as successful as possible.”
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