Collegiate Wresting is the commonly used name for the style of wrestling practiced at the university level in the United States. A very similar style is practiced at the High School and Middle/Junior High School levels, and also for younger participants. The term is used to distinguish from the styles of wrestling used in most of the rest of the world and for the Olympic Games: Greco-Roman wrestling, and Freestyle wrestling.

For a discussion of wrestling at the college level, see NCAA wrestling .

Collegiate style wrestling differs in a number of ways from Freestyle and Greco-Roman:

• Scoring differences - for example, in collegiate style, points are not given for forcing the opponent's shoulder's to quickly rotate through facing the mat. Instead, the opponent's shoulders must be forced to within a 45 degree angle of the mat for 3-5 seconds to score. This shows a difference in focus - while the international styles encourage explosive action, collegiate wrestling encourages control over the opponent.

• An additional position for periods after the first period, and various other situations - All three styles begin a match with both wrestlers facing each other on their feet with the idea being to score a takedown (force the opponent into an inferior position). In collegiate style, once a takedown is scored, the wrestler in the inferior (bottom) position, remains there until he escapes, the period ends, or various penalty situations occur. The inferior position is a choice of starting position for the second and third periods. It offers the advantage of greater scoring possibility when chosen at the beginning of a period, as escaping is easier than scoring a takedown from the neutral position or scoring near-fall points from the superior position.

• De-emphasis on "throws", or maneuvers where the other wrestler is taken off his feet, through the air to land on his back or shoulders. The idea is to reduce the risk of injury that throws create.

High School Level

When practiced at the high school and junior high level, a few differences are seen from when practiced at the college and university level. One is the length of time of high school matches - normally, three two minute periods. In college wrestling, the first period is three minutes with the second and third being two minutes. Additionally, college wrestling carries the concept of "riding time" - if one wrestler can maintain the top position for more than one minute greater than his opponent's total in the match, he is awarded an additional point at the end of the match. High school wrestling does not tally riding time.

Folkstyle - Age-group Level

At young ages, independent tournaments are run often in Freestyle and Greco-Roman styles. There are also tournaments where wrestlers compete in a style very much like collegiate or high school wrestling. To differentiate this style from Freestyle and Greco-Roman, the term folkstyle wrestling is more commonly used than the term collegiate.

There is, however, a much less visible organization of wrestling in the Freestyle and Greco-Roman styles for young wrestlers, especially at the high school and college age levels in the United States, as compared to collegiate style. There are no formal school competitions in Freestyle or Greco-Roman. This does put the US at a potential disadvantage in Olympic and world competition. While all the styles are similar, the differences are enough to create potential disadvantages to the wrestlers not growing up focusing on the international styles. However, some would argue that the real reason the US does not typically fare as well in international wrestling competitions is the greater focus much of the rest of the world places on the sport.

External links

• National Collegiate Wrestling Association
• National Collegiate Athletic Association Wrestling