Iowa wrestling put on COVID pause

The top-ranked Iowa wrestling program has postponed its away dual meet with Penn State, which was scheduled for this Friday in State College, Pa.. The university’s athletic department, at the direction of the University of Iowa medical team, announced today that the Hawkeye program is pausing all team related in-person activities in response to positive COVID-19 test results within the program.

Last week, Iowa coach Tom Brands announced that he had tested positive for the virus and All-Americans Kaleb Young and Alex Marinelli were both held out of competition for contact tracing last weekend in West Lafayette, Ind., for Iowa’s dual meets against Purdue and Ohio State.

Iowa announced that the program will continue to follow Big Ten Conference medical protocols and the medical team will make a determination on return to activity.

“We are appreciative of the Iowa medical staff and respect the decision to pause activities,” said Brands. “We will continue to follow Big Ten protocols and look forward to a return to training and competition.”

Iowa became the latest among many top programs that were forced to pause and either postpone or cancel dual meets because of the pandemic protocol.

Penn State missed its first two weekends of competition, Jan. 16 and 24, because of COVID issues. The entire University of Michigan athletic department put all winter sports, including wrestling, on a pandemic pause on Jan. 24, forcing the Wolverines to postpone dual meets with Iowa and Illinois on Jan. 31 and both Penn State and Wisconsin last weekend.