Where do the best Olympic freestyle wrestlers come from? Medals at the Summer Games are won by wrestlers from all over the world, but there are a few areas of the globe where you will be more likely to find a world-class competitor. 

Wrestling Is A Global Sport

The global governing body for the sport of wrestling is United World Wrestling (UWW). Each country that is represented at the Olympics may also have a representative in the sport of wrestling within UWW for wrestling-specific competitions. 

76 different countries, through their wrestling federation, are competing in freestyle wrestling at the 2023 UWW World Championships. There are even more countries that are represented when you include Greco-Roman and women's wrestling. 

However, freestyle is the most popular Olympic style in the United States, and freestyle is the style that most aligns with folkstyle wrestling, which is practiced in high schools and colleges in the US. Thus, the areas that are best at folkstyle or collegiate wrestling in the USA are also the best for freestyle wrestling in the US. 

The Best Wrestling Countries

Adding up gold, silver, and bronze medals won at the UWW World Championships and Olympic Games ever year since 2000 yields the following table. 

We can also map the total medals on a global heat map, which can be found below. 

As is evident from the table and map, Russia is very good at freestyle wrestling. Iran and the USA are the two most accomplished countries when it comes to winning medals at the Olympics and World Championships. 

Eastern Europe, Central Asia, India, China and Japan are also areas or countries that have been proven medal winners in recent years. 

The area around the Caucasus Mountains, where Iran, Turkey, and Russia meet and where you can find the ex-Soviet Republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, is a wrestling hotbed as well, producing many medal-winners from a comparatively small corner of the globe. 

For a more historical look back at medal counts, see below this heat map from 1951 to 2017 and this accompanying article. 

The Best Wrestling Areas In The USA

The most efficient way to find where the best American wrestlers are from is to map the hometowns of all the qualifiers, All-Americans and champions at the NCAA National Championships. 

We have heat maps of home towns of the qualifiers from the last three NCAA Tournaments. You can find a map of 2023 NCAAs below. 

And here is a breakdown of the 2023 NCAA Championship by the numbers. 

A map of the qualifiers from the 2022 Championship is below.

And a breakdown of the 2022 Tournament by the numbers can be found here. 

Finally, a heat map for the 2021 NCAA Championship is below. 

And the by the numbers article for the 2021 NCAAs is here. 

The number of All-Americans by home state for the top 20 states from 2000 to 2022 (minus 2020, which did not happen because of covid-19) is below.

The top 20 home states for NCAA champions from the same time frame is below.

Armed with these facts and figures allows us to safely claim that Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Illinois, California and Iowa are some of the best states for producing American wrestlers. 

Iowa is also the most impressive state when statistics are calculated on a per capita basis, as it is one of the smallest states to have large numbers of NCAA qualifiers, All-Americans and champions. 

Other regions within larger states that possess a high concentration of wrestlers are the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania and the Central Valley of California. Northeast Oklahoma also has a long tradition of wrestling excellence. 

The Best Wrestling Areas In Russia

Russia is a vast federation of provinces and republics spanning 11 time zones. However, the best wrestling within Russia can be found in the South near the Georgia and Azerbaijan border, and in the East in Siberia near Mongolia. 

The regions best known for freestyle wrestling in Russia include North-Ossetia Alania, Dagestan, and Chechnya in the South, and Tuva, Buryatia, and Yakutia in Siberia. 

Additionally, many wrestlers from these areas transfer to other federations and compete for different countries internationally. Dagestan is most famous for their "legionnaires" or wrestlers from Dagestan who compete for other countries at the Olympics and World Championships. 

Many of the wrestlers from these areas are not ethnic Russians but are from families that are indigenous to the areas that were at one point in history annexed by the Russian Empire or later re-conquered by the Soviet Union or Russian Federation. Their first languages are often not Russian but are Ossetian, Avar, Chechen, Tuvan, or other languages, and are also often practicing Muslims or Buddhists, rather than Eastern Orthodox Christians, which are the majority of Russian citizens. 

The Best Wrestling Areas In Iran

In Iran, the overwhelming majority of successful Iranian wrestlers are from the Mazandaran Province, located on the Southern shores of the Caspian Seas. 

Most inhabitants of this province speak Mazandaran, a distinct though related language to Farsi, which the majority of Iranians speak. The population of Mazandaran is, like the rest of Iran, majority Shia Muslim.

Though not all successful wrestlers from Iran come from Mazandaran, others come from the capital of Tehran or from other regions, the preponderance of Iranian medalists are Mazandarans.  

Wrestling Everywhere

Though the Caucus nations as well as parts of Russia and Iran are the most successful wrestling hotbeds outside the US, there are many other regions that have won medals and have proud wrestling traditions. The state of Haryana in India is very successful, and the small country of Mongolia has long punched above its weight internationally. 

And when it comes to women's wrestling, the conversation starts and ends with Japan, which is by far the most dominant nation in the world when it comes to women's wrestling. 

However, as you can see from the map below, there is no more prodigious source for men's freestyle Olympic medalists than the land around the Caspian Sea. 

That map was taken from this article, which maps all the medalists from the 2016 Rio Games. 

The Bottom Line

To sum up: the Northeast and Midwest of the United States is where you see the highest concentration of high-caliber American wrestlers, and the Caucus Mountains and Caspian Sea areas of the Middle East are where you'll find the highest percentage of Olympic and world medalists.