2016 Bill Farrell International Open

Logan Stieber Going 61kg At Bill Farrell!

Logan Stieber Going 61kg At Bill Farrell!

Logan Stieber will be wrestling 61kg at the non-Olympic weight world team trials at the Bill Farrell

Oct 18, 2016 by Wrestling Nomad
Logan Stieber Going 61kg At Bill Farrell!
Logan Stieber confirmed to FloWrestling that he will be going 61kg at the non-Olympic weight World Team Trials in November at the Bill Farrell International.

When United World Wrestling announced that there would be a non-Olympic weight world championships in December, rumors began swirling about a number of guys going 61 and 70, chief among them Stieber. He ultimately made the choice to drop, in large part because of the opportunity to get a gold around his neck in 2016 rather than 2017.

Stay tuned to FloWrestling on November 10-12 to LIVE stream the Bill Farrell International from New Hempstead, New York.

"I didn't think about it until they came out with the announcement about non-Olympic world championships," Stieber said over the phone. "If they didn't, I would've taken a little a while. And maybe I wouldn't have [dropped to 61], maybe I would have, who knows? But when they announced that, it kind of brought it to my attention, to try to win a world title as soon as I can."

It's the first time he has been down that low since the 2013 WTT when the weight was still 60kg. Despite going 65 the past few years, Stieber said he wanted to get down to a weight where he'll be stronger and that the cut is not terribly difficult for him.

The four-time NCAA champion is not sure how long he will stay down at 61, but Stieber said he will re-assess after New York if he wants to stay down for a few years prior to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

"If for some reason it hinders my performance in a bad way, then I would go up," Stieber said. "I don't think it will, I'm not that big. I did a simulation cut a couple weeks ago and got down, so I think I'll be good. ... If and when I go back up, I don't have to put on an incredible amount of weight to get back to where I was."

He spent some time down in Oklahoma working out with Lou Rosselli, the new head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners and Stieber's old freestyle coach at the Ohio RTC. Aside from Rosselli, the former Buckeye has been training with his brother, Hunter, and Ohio State assistant coach J Jaggers.

Over the winter, Stieber was a part of several overseas tours and included in there was a trip to the Golden Grand Prix in Azerbaijan. There in Baku, he beat eventual Olympic gold medalist Soslan Ramonov, but Stieber said that match didn't change his outlook on his training.

"I've always known I could wrestle with the best guys in the world, that's never been the issue," Stieber said. "I know that I need to win here domestically, and I feel confident in myself that I can get it done on the world stage. I wrestled well last year overseas, so I feel comfortable wrestling those guys."

The Olympic Team Trials in August was Stieber's last competition, and he came up just short of representing the U.S. in Rio. After opening with wins over B.J. Futrell and Zain Retherford, Stieber fell in the semifinal round on a criteria tiebreaker to Frank Molinaro.

"It was unexpected, probably the end result," Stieber said. "I thought I could win regardless of where I was at. I thought I could win before upsets happened, and I thought I could win after upsets happened. I thought I wrestled well. Definitely some areas where I made a few mistakes in my (Zain) Retherford match, and then the Molinaro match. I gave up a four-point move and that's hard to come back from."

The reason many American fans are so excited to see Stieber make a world team, the first since he made the junior world finals in 2011, is Stieber's offensive barrage. While this style has gotten him in trouble several times in his senior-level career because of how many points are scored on him, the former Ohio State star made it clear what his mindset will remain going forward.

Stieber said, "I won't stop gunslingin'."

Watch all the action at the Bill Farrell International LIVE on FloWrestling on November 10-12.