Clarissa Chun outlines what's next for Iowa women's wrestling after dominant debut season

Clarissa Chun was dominant on the mat and eventually led a dominant performance as coach of the Iowa women’s wrestling team.

The Hawkeyes went 16-0 in 2023-24, were team champions, had six individual national champions and 12 All-Americans. Not bad for a first year program right?

Iowa became the first Power Five school to sponsor women’s wrestling and the Hawkeyes and Chun are just getting started.

“What’s next for us is our summer camps coming up,” Chun told On3. “We have a couple in the month of June and then really getting ready. We have a couple on the U20 Pan-Am team, four on the U20. World Team, and then like Kylie (Welker’s) wrestling off for the U23 World Team. There’ll be non-Olympic World Team trials in September. So really gearing our women who qualified for those events, or made those teams to get them ready to compete throughout the summer, and then really just gearing up for the incoming (freshmen). 

It’s tough to top what Iowa did last learn, but Chun said she’s always willing to learn as a head coach. But what’s coming up in Year 2 promises to be exciting.

“It’s June but I feel like August is gonna come by so fast and really just trying to organize our competition schedule,” Chun said. “We know where we want to go out, you know, as far as traveling. We’re waiting on any home meets. Really waiting on the Big Ten Ten schedule for men and women’s basketball and men’s wrestling. 

“And navigating the dates and times and opportunities we can have at Carver because we definitely want to make sure that we’re in Carver and it was awesome. We got the new facility that we just moved in a month ago and the tunnel runs out straight into Carver.”

Iowa set a women’s wrestling attendance record back in November when the Hawkeyes wrestled inside Carver Hawkeye Arena. There’s reason to believe they can do it again, multiple times, should the schedule allow.

A crowd of 8,207 showed up to watch the Trailblazer Duals last season, a world record. The schedule is still to-be-determined for the 2024-25 season, but Chun and the Hawkeyes will be the overwhelming favorites to be the top team in the sport this coming winter.