OSU Wrestling: Christian Carroll Qualifies for Olympic Team Trials With Last Chance Title

There’s a chance Christian Carroll could compete for his country before his college.

Carroll, who redshirted for Oklahoma State this past season, won the 97-kilogram bracket at the Last Chance Olympic Team Trials Qualifier on Sunday in Fairfax, Virginia. The title secured Carroll a spot at the United States Olympic Team Trials on April 19-20. Carroll will join former Cowboys Daton Fix and Alex Dieringer as OSU representatives at the Team Trials. After Team USA is created, the 2024 Paris Olympic Games will be July 26-Aug. 11, with wrestling starting Aug. 5 and medal matches on the last day of competition.

As the 4 seed, Carroll notched three technical falls and outscored his opponents 42-7 on his way to the Last Chance title. He handled 2 seed Camden McDanel with an 11-0 tech fall in the championship match. To get there, Carroll upset top-seeded Jacob Warner 8-7 in the semis. It was the only match of the day that Carroll didn’t earn a tech fall.

Christian Carroll gets the tech over Camden McDanel to punch his ticket 🎟️ to the Olympic Team Trials 💪 pic.twitter.com/w2pG63WBwi

— FloWrestling (@FloWrestling) April 7, 2024

Sunday wasn’t Carroll’s first freestyle success, though. Despite being a freshman and the youngest of the OSU representatives competing, he probably had the most freestyle success on his resume as a member of the 2023 U20 USA World Team and champion of the 2023 U.S. Open. When in high school, Carroll was a junior freestyle national champion in 2021. His freestyle success helped propel Carroll to be the No. 1 pound-for-pound recruit in the 2023 class before redshirting for OSU as a heavyweight this past season.

Carroll was only one of seven current and former Cowboys competing Sunday. Daniel Manibog had the next best showing at 74 kg, winning a pair of matches to reach the quarterfinals before losing two straight. Jordan Williams, Carter Young, Cutter Sheets and Dean Heil all won their first-round matches in the 65-kilogram bracket before all losing their next match and ultimately falling in the consolation bracket.