Iowa City-Coralville get 2012 U.S. Olympic Wrestling Team Trials -- with great joy and pain sure to be seen in Carver-Hawkeye Arena in 15 months

USA Wrestling has chosen Iowa City to host the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for wrestling.

This is, obviously, great news for Iowa City-Coralville and the Eastern Iowa Corridor. Visitors, money, etc.

The Trials will determine the U.S. wrestlers for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. The event will be held at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on April 21-22, 2012.

I covered the event in 1984, 1996 and 2000 in Allendale, Mich., Spokane, Wash., and Dallas, respectively. It's always been full of tension, emotion, elation, and abject heartbreak.

In Spokane in 1996, Tom Brands of Iowa qualified for the U.S. team (he went on to win the gold medal in Atlanta at that year's Olympic) and his brother, Terry Brands, missed by the slimmest of margins in losing to Kendall Cross, who also went on to win the gold in Atlanta.

Terry Brands was in Atlanta at those '96 Games to help his brother prepare. Tom retired from competitive wrestling after winning there. Terry kept competing, qualified for the U.S. team in 2000, and won a bronze medal at the Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

The video of the Brands-Cross match that 1996 night in Spokane is at the end of this post. The matches between the two and the aftermath stand out as among the most-memorable things I've ever covered. Here is the story I wrote about it:

SPOKANE , Wash. - Terry Brands left Spokane Arena in anger.

After losing the third match in a best-of-three to Kendall Cross in the 125.5-pound finals of the U.S. Olympic Freestyle Wrestling Trials, Brands bolted out of the building.

He didn't shake hands with Cross or the official. He jogged out of the main arena, picked up a chair and threw it at a wall, then ran into a parking lot until he encountered a chain-link fence. He tried to climb over, but was pulled back.

He was pursued by his coach, Dan Gable, as well as by a United States Olympic Committee drug-testing official and others, including his twin brother, Tom.

Finally, Gable and company somehow persuaded Brands to return. Had he not come back for the mandatory post-finals drug test, he would have lost his second-place finish, and the money and status within USA Wrestling that comes with it for a year. All finalists are required to take drug tests.

It was a sour ending to what had been a promising evening for the Brands family. Both Terry and Tom rolled to afternoon wins. But Cross edged Terry twice in two stirring evening bouts, 7-6 and 8-7. Tom bested John Fisher, 7-1, in the evening to sweep his series, then watched helplessly as his brother failed to join him on the Olympic team.

"I'm pretty much mixed up a little bit," Tom said after the ceremony in which all 10 winners were presented their gold medals.

While Tom and the other champions were huddled in a room with USA Wrestling honchos to get briefed on plans and schedules for the next several weeks leading up to freestyle competition in Atlanta July 30-Aug. 2, Terry was somewhere else.

In his own private hell, no doubt.

It was supposed to be both Brands in the Olympics, at least so thought many. Sports Illustrated had a recent profile of the duo. It didn't paint a pretty picture, and Tom thought it was unfair because much of it was "ancient history," but the magazine did call the pair favorites to win the Olympic Trials.

Cross, who beat Terry in the 125.5 title match at the U.S. Nationals in April, said the story was motivating.

"The person I had to defeat was in it," Cross said. "My vanity carries me a long way."

Cross is a clever, amazingly flexible athlete who makes an opponent vulnerable when the opponent thinks he is about to become in command. Early in their deciding match Saturday, Terry saw an opportunity to go for a high throw worth up to five points.

"He didn't pick him up high enough," Gable said. "That plays right into Cross ' game."

Cross tripped Brands and scored a 3-point takedown.

But Brands took Cross down three straight times for a point each in rallying to knot the match at 5-5.

"That was right where we wanted to be," Gable said. "But then Brands did the other thing we didn't want to do. He went underneath Cross . He must have gotten overconfident."

Cross quickly turned Brands ' aggressive move into something good of his own. He exposed Brands to the mat for two points, and added a point for an 8-5 lead. It was 8-6 with 44 seconds left. Brands took Cross down to make it 8-7, but it was a futile move with only two seconds left.

The horn sounded with Cross grinning and Brands crawling toward a scoreboard at matside as if it would somehow change the score if he could get to it.

Moments later, he was crumpled on the mat with his head in his hands. He finally arose, resisted the referee's attempt to have him shake Cross ' hand, was jeered, and fled the arena.

"I wasn't surprised," Cross said. "I actually thought he'd be worse. I just know he really hates to lose. "If I can beat him, I can beat anybody in the world."

Tom Brands stood next to Cross at the medals ceremony. He wasn't as outwardly happy as many of the other nine winners, but he did wave an arm to the crowd after getting his medal, and he shook Cross' hand without hesitation.

"(Terry) got beat fair and square," Tom said. He added that it won't feel strange not having his brother with him on the Olympic team.

"I've got to worry about myself," he said in his permanent warrior-like manner.

But there wasn't any joy pouring out of Tom in the hour after his triumph. He may not be his brother's keeper, but he knows it will feel odd training for the Olympics while his brother is on the outside looking in.

Of the 20-plus wrestlers from Iowa colleges at the U.S. Greco- Roman and Freestyle Trials, Tom was the only one to come away a winner.

Eric Akin of Iowa State and the Hawkeye Wrestling Club lost a genuinely heart-breaking 3-2 overtime decision to Lou Rosselli in the third match of their 114.5-pound series. Akin was the surprise finalist of the tourney, coming in as just a No.4 seed.

Many other wrestlers and fans talked about Akin's gutsiness throughout the Trials. Then he came so very close on a few occasions to taking down Rosselli in overtime for a sudden-death win.

But the 1994 NCAA runner-up ended up sitting on a cement floor in a hallway, his body scrunched up and his face covered in a towel. Like Terry Brands , he lost an Olympic berth by one point. That's misery.

Two other former Cyclones, 1992 Olympic champion Kevin Jackson and 1988 NCAA titlist Mike Van Arsdale, lost their finals in two straight matches.

Iowa's Lincoln McIlravy bowed out Friday with a 12-4 mini-tourney loss to Pat Santoro that left him in a sorrowful rage. Hawkeyes volunteer assistant coach Royce Alger not only lost 11-0 to Jackson in his mini-tourney final Friday, but suffered torn cartilage and possible ligament damage in his left knee.

At 31, Alger would seem to be finished in international competition. Longtime rival Jackson said he didn't expect Alger to be back, but Alger reportedly was already talking about rehabilitation for his comeback as of Saturday morning. It's appears to be hard to walk away from this sport even when it's hard to walk, period.

Meanwhile, it is Tom Brands who will represent Iowa in Olympic wrestling this year. He'll be Brands, singular. That already felt odd late Saturday night.