How Oklahoma State's Daton Fix is prepping for both NCAA wrestling finals, Olympic trials

STILLWATER — Oklahoma State wrestler Daton Fix knows what he’ll be doing March 24. He just knows he can’t waste the mental effort to think about it right now.

Instead, March 23 is the focus of his attention.

That’s the final day of the NCAA Championships in Kansas City, Missouri, where Fix hopes to finally claim the national title that has eluded him in his previous four trips.

He and the Cowboys will also be hoping for a strong team finish in the event, which will be held March 21-23 at T-Mobile Center. OSU will be part of an exciting race for second place, though no one is likely to take down powerhouse Penn State for the title.

Regardless of what happens for Fix individually — he is the No. 1 seed at 133 pounds — on March 23, the following day will not be one for celebrating or sulking.

He’ll be on a treadmill, cutting weight.

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While Fix’s most pressing dream is the NCAA title, the larger looming goal is the Olympic Games, to be held in Paris this summer.

The U.S. Olympic Team Trials will be held April 19-20, which puts a tight deadline on Fix’s preparation.

Mentally, he must prepare for the transition from folkstyle wrestling, used in college competition, to the freestyle method in Olympic competition.

And more dauntingly, Fix must lose eight pounds. Though he’s successful at 133 pounds in college, internationally, he feels he’s best suited at 57 kilograms, which is roughly 125 pounds. There is no 133-pound equivalent for the Olympics, with the next class at 65 kg, or 143 pounds.

“I feel that at 57 kilos, I can beat anybody in the world,” Fix said. "That’s been one of my goals since I first started wrestling, to be an Olympic gold medalist.

“It’s not an easy cut, but I really don’t have a choice. I could go up, but I’d be undersized. I think being at 57 kilos, that gives me the best chance to accomplish my goals.”

This won’t be the first time Fix has gone straight from the NCAA Championships to cutting weight for the trials. He did it after the 2021 season, and that year, he had even less time to get down to weight.

More: Big 12 wrestling: Oklahoma State comes up short in pursuit of Iowa State for title

“It was hard,” he said. “What made it a little harder was we only had two weeks, instead of two-and-a-half or three weeks like we have this year. So it was a really quick turnaround then. I can remember I was back in Stillwater the next day, running on the treadmill. It’ll probably be the same thing this year, but I have a little bit more time.”

When he was preparing for the U.S. team trials in 2020, Fix elected to take an Olympic redshirt, which allowed him to take the year off from college wrestling while not losing a year of eligibility.

But when the 2020 Olympics were pushed back a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fix returned to the Cowboys for the following season. He lost in the semifinals of the U.S. team trials in 2021.

Now, Fix feels more confident in the process, thanks to the experience of 2021.

“I did it then and I think I’m more prepared now than I was then, because I’ll be a little bit more disciplined and I’ll make that weight fairly easily so I can compete to the best of my ability at the Olympic trials,” he said. “It’s a big part of it, because I have to make the weight, but I still have to go perform.”

His final season of college wrestling has been one of his most challenging. Fix missed significant time early in the season because of injury, which was followed up by a brief illness. But he’s undefeated heading into the NCAA Championships and enters into one of the most important months of his career at peak confidence.

“The journey’s not over,” said OSU coach John Smith. “Got an Olympic team to make and a gold medal to win.”

NCAA Championships

WHEN: Thursday-Saturday

WHERE: T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Mo.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OSU wrestler Daton Fix excited for NCAA championships, Olympic trials