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Nixa’s Zan Fugitt has experienced success at the high school level in Missouri and even won a tournament earlier this summer at the national level. Now, he’s putting his skills to the test internationally.
“I always wanted to wrestle on the worldwide scale ever since I was a little kid when I started wrestling,” the Nixa senior said.
Now, he’s getting that chance.
“I wrestled at the world team trials in Las Vegas,” he added.
“He was down 9-0, 10 points is a tech fall, and we were one point away from being technically beat and he stormed back and won the match. That right there speaks to what kind of competitor he is, he has a very level head,” Nixa wrestling coach Dustin Martin said.
Zan won the greco style title, earning him a spot on the 17U national team.
First stop, Buenos Aires, Argentina in late June for the Pan-American Championships.
“Definitely an exciting experience and I’m pumped for it,” said Zan.
However, he’s most looking forward to the World Championships in July when he and coach Martin will fly to Rome, Italy.
“It’s going to be exciting and I’m looking forward to going to Italy and seeing all the places and wrestling hard,” said Zan.
“Hopefully not a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity but it could be, you don’t know. It’s incredibly tough to make a world team so to have the opportunity to go out there with Zan and experience with him I’m excited about it,” added Martin.
The future Oklahoma Sooner is hoping this is just the next step in an amazing wrestling career.
“I think it’s going to help me tremendously because there are other levels to wrestling and it will definitely show me that. Just growing as a wrestler and a person I’ll definitely get a lot better from this no matter the outcome. Hopefully, it’s just a small steppingstone, hopefully, I can grow off of this and keep making world teams and so on,” said Zan.
You can follow his journey here.
