Konrad Dudziak Talks About Training for the Olympics and Becoming a The Most Talked About Heavyweight in NCAA Wrestling

Konrad Dudziak spent the last year living and training in Dagestan, Russia and The Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Finishing 3^rd in the ACC Tournament in 2006, Konrad set out to compete at the Olympic level and return to Duke this fall as a top contender for winning NCAA’s at heavyweight. He took an Olympic redshirt to train and the results have been astounding. This past spring alone, Konrad won the Northern Plains Regional Olympics Trials over Sean Stender, previously ranked 3^rd on the Olympic ladder. Additionally, Konrad placed 8^th at the Western Regional Olympic Trials and 2^nd at University Nationals. In all of these tournaments, Dudziak has either defeated or placed ahead of highly regarded All-American and National Champion wrestlers from various programs.

Konrad is excited to build on his success beginning this fall, as he has managed to retain two full years of NCAA eligibility. He recently took a moment to collect thoughts regarding his training, success, priorities headed into the upcoming Olympic Trials, a chance to compete in Beijing, and NCAA competition next fall.

“Leaving Duke my after my freshman year, I was better than nearly all of the wrestlers on the team. Yet it still took me 3 months in Russia, a wrestling season at Duke, a year and a half in Poland, and 8 months at the Olympic Training Center (OTC) just for me to be able to achieve that success I have so far. It will possibly take twice as much to make sure I do even more in the future.

Think about it.

I am very far from being rich and none of this has come easily. For three months, I lived and trained in Dagestan, the terrorist capital of Russia, without a soul to talk to. My dad did a lot to arrange my tickets and living expenses there before I earned the right to have my training funded. After training there in the fall, I showed up at the door of USA Wrestling one day in Colorado, asking to train there, without a place to live or even knowing if they’d accept me. Luckily, my father cares a great deal about my success and smoothed over the arrangements once again. Others from Duke paved the way for me to train at the OTC as well. Coach Clar, Tom Cass, Mike Mitchell, and of course, Frank Cornely, all trained there in the past for at least one semester. They have not only showed me this was possible, but in a way, they paved the road for Duke Wrestlers to have the chance to train there.

You’ll find that winning feels awesome. Being good feels awesome. It’s addictive too. There have been many in our program at Duke that realized it; some too late to do anything about it. I realized that my freshman year. I was actually stuck at a crossroads - either sacrifice the next three years and put in all the work to maybe have a shot at being the best, with no guarantee that I’m even able to be that good - or quit. I faced that question in high school and held off answering it for quite some time. I was actually leaning the other way at one point, if not for my senior captains and Coach Anderson’s nudges in the other direction.

I’d like to issue a challenge to my teammates as well. What are your priorities? When Coach Anderson recruited you, he offered academic excellence and the chance to work as hard as you are willing to in order to achieve greatness in wrestling. What does your daily life look like and what are your priorities? I believe that each of you came here to compete. As Sir Isaac Newton once said, ‘If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’ Thank You.

_Konrad”