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EXCELLENCE OF USA WRESTLING AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES * At the most recent Olympic Games in Beijing, China in 2008, the United States captured three medals overall (one in men's freestyle, one in women's freestyle and one in Greco-Roman), including a gold by freestyler Henry Cejudo. * At the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, the United States won the second most wrestling medals of all nations with seven (four in freestyle and three in Greco-Roman) with only Russia winning more medals. * U.S. freestyle wrestlers have won a medal at every Olympic Games they have participated in and have won at least one gold medal in 19 of the 22 Olympic Games that they have partici- pated in. * U.S. wrestlers have won 125 medals, including 107 freestyle medals, 15 Greco-Roman medals and 3 women's freestyle medals. * U.S. wrestlers have won 50 gold medals, including 47 freestyle gold medals and 3 Greco-Roman gold medals. * The 2004 Olympic Games included women's freestyle wrestling for the first time. U.S. wrestlers won two medals in this competition, sec- ond only to Japan. * Only two U.S. sports have won more men's Olympic medals than wrestling: track and field and swimming. These sports have more events than wrestling. * No nation has won more freestyle wrestling medals at the Olympic Games than the United States with 109. The next closest nation is the former Soviet Union with 62. * USA Wrestling developed three two-time Olympic champions - George Mehnert (1904, 1908), John Smith (1988, 1992) and Bruce Baumgartner (1984, 1992). * USA Wrestling featured a four-time Olympic medalist, Bruce Baumgartner, who won gold medals in 1984 and 1992, a silver medal in 1988 and a bronze medal in 1996. Baumgartner carried the U.S. flag at the Opening Ceremonies at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. * 10 U.S. wrestlers have won two Olympic wrestling medals: Baumgartner, Smith, Mehnert, Henry Wittenburg, Rick Sanders, Ben Peterson, John Peterson, Kenny Monday, Dennis Koslowski and Rulon Gardner. 6 - 2012 USA Wrestling Media Guide AT THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS * U.S. wrestlers have won 205 medals, including 123 in men's freestyle, 53 in women's freestyle and 29 in Greco-Roman. * The United States is in second place for the most World Championship men's freestyle wrestling medals with 123. Only the former Soviet Union, with 220, has won more medals. The U.S. has won 35 gold medals at the Men's Freestyle World Championships. Only the former Soviet Union and Iran have won more World gold medals in freestyle. * The U.S. won World team titles in freestyle wrestling in 1993 and 1995, in women's wrestling in 1999 and in Greco-Roman in 2007. * Bruce Baumgartner is the only U.S. freestyle wrestler in history to win 13 World or Olympic medals, including nine World medals and four Olympic medals. * The U.S. has had five Greco-Roman World champions: Mike Houck, Dennis Hall, Rulon Gardner, Dremiel Byers and Joe Warren. * The U.S. has had five women's World champi- ons: Tricia Saunders, Kristie Davis, Sandra Bacher, Iris Smith and Clarissa Chun. * Women's freestyle wrestler Tricia Saunders has won four World gold medals (1992, 1996, 1998-99) and five World medals overall. Kristie Marano has won the most women's World medals with nine, including two gold medals. IN THE UNITED STATES * Wrestling is one of the most popular sports for high school boys. Wrestling ranks No. 6 in terms of participants and No. 8 in terms of school pro- grams, according to the 2010-11 National Federation survey. * High school wrestling has grown dramatically in both in number of participants and number of teams according to National Federation statis- tics. In the 2010-11 season, there were 10,407 wrestling teams with 273,732 male athletes. * Girls wrestling is one of the fastest growing youth sports programs. In 1990, there were just 112 girls competing on the high school level, according to statistics from the National Federation. * Participation grew each year, reaching a record of 7,351 high school girl wrestlers in 2010-11, with 1,251 girls wrestling teams.