Shift in priorities leads Molinaro through Olympic journey

3…2…1…the clock ran out on Frank Molinaro’s dream of winning a 2016 Olympic medal. He was literally inches from defeating reigning World champion Frank Chamizo of Italy for a bronze medal at 65 kg, shattering the public’s expectations and pushing aside the doubters.


Molinaro’s road to Rio was filled with highs, lows and unknowns.


Shortly after the life of Olympic wrestling was threatened by the IOC in 2013, Molinaro, a former NCAA champion for Penn State, decided to lace up his wrestling shoes once again and pursue wrestling glory at an international level.


Having never wrestled freestyle, Molinaro and his wife, Kera, packed up, left their coaching jobs at Rutgers and headed back to Happy Valley in 2014.


“I still felt like I had a lot of passion and enthusiasm for competing and I missed the sport,” Molinaro said. “We had just gotten married and she was pregnant. We moved into this lady’s apartment that we met on Craigslist and were just on the grind. It was a little scary at first. We sacrificed her career and my career for a dream that I had. I just had to really make sure that this wasn’t something impulsive.”


As he began training freestyle, he said it felt like he was learning a different sport and saw little progress, but his faith and dream of being a World and Olympic champion kept him pressing on.


“At the time, it was pretty much impossible [to be World champion], considering where I was in my skill set,” he said. “I had never wrestled freestyle. One practice I got my butt kicked, and I came home that day with a lot of doubt, but my wife was really supportive. I think that helped a lot. My faith and family support really kept me going.”


Fast forward about two years to February 2016.


Molinaro traveled to the Alexander Medved International tournament in Belarus, where he went 0-1, losing by technical fall in the first round. It became a pivotal point for Molinaro and his wrestling.


“I had enough of it and enough of believing the story that I was telling myself. I started telling myself a different story and it started leading me to new things,” he said.


A new peace of mind and approach to his training led the ninth-seeded Molinaro confidently into the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team Trials in April in Iowa City, Iowa.


“I remember waking up for the trials, knowing that I did everything I possibly could all day, every day to prepare myself and I was ready to give it my best shot,” Molinaro said. “I could tell by looking at the other wrestlers’ faces that they put a lot of pressure on themselves. I think my trust in my training and my faith in God really set me apart from the rest of my competition.”


He fought past the likes of two-time NCAA champion Kellen Russell, top-seeded and six-time World team member Brent Metcalf and four-time NCAA champion Logan Stieber to earn his spot in the finals. He met up with wunderkind Aaron Pico, who he beat in a best two-out-of-three series.


“I knew [the Olympic Trials] were going to be intense,” Molinaro said. “My biggest plan was to train myself to stay present throughout the whole process. I knew that if I was going to be willing to trust God, it was going to take enthusiasm to compete and a mindset to have fun. Even though I felt nervous and vulnerable, part of trusting God was being enthusiastic in the whole process, including cutting weight, warming up, competing, all of it. If I caught myself stressing about my next opponent or anything like that, I got rid of it. Those are the kinds of thoughts that cripple you so I had to condition my mind to stay present throughout the whole tournament. I think that made a difference for me because I didn’t have much worry. I was in the moment and locked in all day.”


Molinaro was the Olympic Team Trials champion, but he still wasn’t qualified for Rio. Just days later, he and U.S. freestyle national coach Bruce Burnett strategized for the Olympic qualifying tournaments. The first was set to take place in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Molinaro failed to qualify in Mongolia, meaning he had just one more chance to realize his Olympic dream.


The 2nd World Olympic Games Qualifier took place in Istanbul, Turkey, where only the top-two finishers in each weight would qualify for the Olympics.


“I knew what the opportunity was,” Molinaro said. “I didn’t want to put pressure on myself but at the end of the day, I either won and made the Olympics or I lost and it would all be for nothing.”


Molinaro lost in the quarterfinals to Borislav Novachkov of Bulgaria. His hopes of making it to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to compete in the Olympics were crushed.

Novachkov made it to the finals, giving Molinaro a shot to wrestle for bronze, which he achieved.


“Right after I took third in Turkey, I was asking the coaches if there was any chance I could get a wild card. They told me crazier things have happened. When I had to come back a wrestle for bronze, the state of mind I was in and the switch that flipped in my head felt as though God still had a plan for me and completing this journey. I just refused to believe that I wasn’t going,” he said.


Just three days later the international wrestling federation, United World Wrestling, announced the reallocation of several Olympic bids due to doping violations. One of the affected weights was 65 kg. Molinaro was awarded one of the two spots vacated at the weight.


While the country was buzzing about the news, which meant the U.S. would take its entire freestyle team, Molinaro was on the golf course, his phone dead and cut off from the world.


“When I turned my phone back on, I had like 75 text messages congratulating me and telling me I was going,” he said. “When I walked through my front door, I laid on the ground for about 15 minutes and just processed it all.”


Finally after a long, tough road, Molinaro was would officially represent the Red, White and Blue at the 2016 Olympics.


But first, he had one more international test, the 2016 Men’s Freestyle World Cup, which was held on U.S. soil in Los Angeles, Calif.


“I took the World Cup very seriously as I was preparing because a lot of people didn’t think that I deserved to be on the Olympic team. Maybe they thought it was a fluke or I got lucky,” Molinaro said. “Regardless, it didn’t matter but it did impact me and I used it as motivation. It was a great opportunity for me to not only get acclimated for the Olympic but I had four tough, quality opponents. I wrestled it like it was my Olympic tournament.”


Molinaro had a fantastic showing at the event, going 4-0 and downing two World top-10 competitors in 2015 World bronze medalist and No. 7 Sayed Mohammadi of Iran and No. 9 Zurab Iakobishvili of Georgia.


He had proved himself over and over and was peaking just in time for the most awaited wrestling event that only comes around once every four years.


“Team USA coaches as well as my personal coaches all stepped up and did a great job in preparing me for it. I don’t think I could have been any more prepared. I have no regrets in how I trained or competed.”


In his first match on the biggest stage Molinaro has competed on, he took out Magomedmurad Gadzhiev of Poland, who was ranked No. 2 at 70 kg.


Molinaro fell short against No. 5 and defending Olympic champion Toghrul Asgarov of Azerbaijan in his next match and patiently waited to see if he would be pulled back into the repechage.


He was given another chance to compete after Asgarov stormed to the finals.


Molinaro passed by Andriy Kvyatkovskyy of Ukraine in a come-from-behind win in his first repechage match and would wrestle for bronze. Waiting for him in the third-place finals was defending World champion Chamizo.


In an exciting match, Molinaro trailed 4-2 with 10 seconds left. He dived in on a single leg and lifted Chamizo completely off the ground in a last-ditch effort to score. He came around the Italian with control of both ankles and his opponent’s knees just an inch from the mat, looking to be awarded a takedown. It was not enough as the buzzer sounded, indicating that Molinaro would return to the United States without a medal in the 5-3 loss to Chamizo.


“It’s really tough because I knew that if I was going to win that match, I had to fully believe in myself. I really did. I believed 100 percent that I would win,” Molinaro said. “I remember warming up and I was really excited because I thought I was going to leave with a bronze medal. Up until the last second when I lost the match and it was going from one extreme to the next, it was heartbreaking. I remember walking off the mat and reminding myself that God’s grace is sufficient. The amount of support I had afterward was overwhelming. People were so pleased with my performance and my effort, and that was really reassuring for me. It was motivating. People were so helpful in getting me through that and giving me the right perspective. The support from the guys on the team, the USA, my family and some people that I didn’t expect was just amazing for me. It pulled me back and balanced me.”


His entire 2016 wrestling journey, Molinaro explains, has been a one that can easily be summed up with one word: gains.


“I just gave up comfort as a priority in my life,” Molinaro said. “Early on I think everything was built and tailored around me being comfortable. When I made that adjustment into not focusing on comfort, it freed me up to make explosive gains. I looked at being uncomfortable as more of a pleasure because I knew I was making progress.”


Molinaro looks to continue competing at least through 2020 and has his sights set on a 2017 World championship. His road to a World title starts in late November at the Golden Grand Prix in Baku, Azerbaijan.