Carver-Hawkeye Arena won the bid to host United World Wrestling’s 2018 Freestyle World Cup, an annual event that features the top eight men’s freestyle wrestling teams in the world. Wrestlers will descend on the University of Iowa campus for the event April 21-22, 2018.
The Iowa arena has also hosted the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in both 2012 and 2016, setting records with the sold-out 2012 event attended by 54,766 people. The local organizing committee in charge of those events will also take the helm for the 2018 Freestyle World Cup, including individuals with the University of Iowa Athletics, the Iowa City/Coralville Convention and Visitors Bureau and the cities of Iowa City, Coralville and North Liberty.
“For that past few Olympic years, we have been front and center to the nation with our hosting of the U.S. Olympic Team Trials,” said Josh Schamberger, president of the Iowa City/Coralville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, according to a press release published by the University of Iowa Athletics and USA Wrestling. “Now, in April of 2018, the world very clearly gets to see why Iowa City is one of the sport’s most hallowed capitals.”
The event will be the 30th time the event has been hosted in the United States. Los Angeles hosted the event for the last three years, from 2014 to 2016. The 2017 event will be held in Tehran, Iran in February.
