Two days ago, Tervel Dlagnev didn’t think he’d be competing at the U.S. Olympic Wrestling Trials.
“I was about to quit,” Dlagnev said on NBCSN. “It hurt so bad.”
Dlagnev saw a chiropractor and persevered to join two fellow 2012 U.S. Olympians in becoming the first three members of the 2016 U.S. Olympic wrestling team in Iowa City on Saturday night.
All three wrestlers to clinch Rio berths — Dlagnev, Elena Pirozhkova and Ben Provisor — did so in sweeps of best-of-three finals at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Dlagnev, bad back and all, bounced Zach Rey in the freestyle 125kg finals, repeating the result of the 2014 and 2015 World Championships Team Trials finals.