Missouri’s starter at the 141 weight class, Jaydin Eierman, will spend the 2019-20 season training for the 2020 Olympics and won’t compete for MU, the wrestler confirmed during a press conference Monday afternoon.
“It’s always been our thought, like I wanted to make the Olympic Team,” Eierman said. “So with that coming next year, it’s gonna be a good year for me to focus on my ultimate goal of winning the Olympics and growing as a wrestler, getting to travel all around the world to compete for Team USA.”
Eierman is the three-time defending Mid-American Conference champion in his weight class, having won most recently on March 9 in Norfolk, Virginia. Before Mizzou, he was a four-time state champion at Father Tolton Catholic High School. He trains with his father, Mike Eierman, at the Eierman Elite Wrestling club in Fulton, Missouri.
“We’ll get back on track to evolve and develop into an Olympian and not just an NCAA champion, because they’re two totally different development processes,” Mike said. “Being an olympian is just a little different from being a college national champion.”
Eierman will have three shots to qualify for the games, which will take place in Tokyo, Japan. The first of those shots will be the 2019 World Championships in September in Astana, Kazakhstan. If he fails to qualify then, his next chance will be at the Pan American Qualification Tournament on April 3 to 5 of 2020, the location of which has not yet been named. His last chance will be less than a month later beginning on April 30 at the World Qualification Tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Eierman isn’t the first of coach Brian Smith’s wrestlers to try his hand in the Olympics. In 2016, J’den Cox of the 197 weight class took home the bronze medal at the Rio Olympics. Unlike Eierman, Cox used all four of his years of collegiate eligibility consecutively, competing in Brazil between his junior and senior seasons.
Despite missing next season, Eierman intends to rejoin Missouri for his final year of eligibility in 2020-21.
_Edited by Emily Leiker | eleiker@themaneater.com_