June 13, 2008: The Salt Lake Tribune

Olympics: Wrestler Ruiz Not Restless About Trials
by Michael C. Lewis

LAS VEGAS — Everybody expects him to win, the schedule is dramatically in his favor, and he knows firsthand the pain of failure, having narrowly missed fulfilling his dream by losing at the U.S. Olympic Trials four years ago.

But wrestler Justin Ruiz insisted he isn't nervous, this time.

"I don't feel any pressure on myself," he said at a press conference Thursday, where he was the only one of seven athletes in a shirt-and-tie. "I just want to go out there and have fun and wrestle to the best of my ability. To have no regrets, I guess."

If that happens, the 28-year-old Taylorsville native is sure to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Games in China later this summer.

He's a five-time national champion and former world bronze medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling, and has a bye into the best-of-three finals of his weight division at the trials Sunday at the Thomas & Mack Center while nine others battle among themselves for the right to challenge him.

It's a moment for which Ruiz has been training for years, especially after losing to two-time Olympian Garrett Lowney in the title match of the 2004 trials.

Yet that moment serves less as a motivational tool, he said, than a source of happiness about the path his life took as a result. After moving to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs to dedicate himself to reaching Beijing rather than retire, he wound up meeting his wife, the former Sarah Wright.

"If I would have won, my life would be completely different now," he said. "So even though it hurt, and it was something that was hard, it actually turned out for the best."

Ruiz needs to win his 211.5-pound weight class to reach the Olympics. He's most likely to face either R.C. Johnson or Adam Wheeler in the finals — he has consistently beaten them at the national championships and world team trials in recent years - but said he's ready for anything.

"It's up for grabs, for anybody," he said.