PARIS – The University of Michigan is well-represented at this Olympics, with 42 former and current students competing, representing some 22 countries.
It’s also the first school to send five wrestlers to a single Olympic Games -- a significant accomplishment for a program that set its sights on international success many years ago.
“We’ve got five really special guys getting ready to compete,” said U of M’s head wrestling coach, Sean Bormet.
Adam Coon and Mason Parris are wrestling for Team USA. Myles Amine is representing the tiny republic of San Marino. Austin Gomez is part of Team Mexico, and Stevan Micic will wrestle for Serbia.
But they’re all Wolverines at heart.
“It’s amazing, you know, it’s just like we’re back here at Michigan,” Parris said. “Even though we’re in a completely different country, we’re all going to have each other.”
“We all push each other, make sure that we are competing at the highest caliber, and it’s just super cool to have so many familiar faces that you’ll be able to see over there and cheer on at the same time,” Coon said. “It’s a cool experience, and a very unique experience, I think.”
Four of the five trained together in Ann Arbor for the Olympics, driving and supporting each other.
“There’s some commonality here, and we got to feed off of each other,” Amine said.
Sending five wrestlers to these Olympics is no accident, said Bormet.
“When I came back here to Michigan, one of the goals was to build the best wrestling environment in the world, here in Ann Arbor, and that takes a great international program so our best guys can stay train and compete for gold medals when they finish,” Bormet said. “Definitely a lot of pride throughout our program, our alumni base, and all the great supporters we have helping us do all this.”
It’s also a foundation for the future.
“The top recruits around the country, they have dreams, goals of winning Olympic gold medals, and to be one of the universities that’s doing that at such a high level with so many guys definitely makes this place very attractive to the top recruits,” Bormet said. “We don’t just have a four or five year plan for a lot of these top recruits. We have a 10, 12-year plan for these guys, and it starts when they come in as freshmen, and we try to accelerate their development and get them as good as we can, as fast as we can.”
It’s a plan that’s paying off for the Maize and Blue as they go for the gold.
“The energy, the intensity -- everything’s been at an all-time high,” Bormet said.
“All those years of hard work and kind of building, building this team, building this program -- now it’s like five Olympians,” Amine said. “That’s something to show for, I would say.”
The five have also accomplished their academic goals. All have now graduated, earning degrees in aerospace engineering, civil engineering, business administration, social work, and sociology. Three have also earned master’s degrees during their time at Michigan.