Four former ISU wrestlers will compete at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials this weekend at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City.

Trent Paulson (2003-07), Travis Paulson (2003-07), David Zabriskie (2006-10) and Jon Reader (2007-11) will be donning their experience as former Cyclone wrestlers in hopes of qualifying for the U.S. Olympic freestyle team that will compete at the 2012 Olympics this summer in London.

“It’s our duty to go out and wrestle as hard as we possibly can and do what we’re trained to do,” Reader said. “I want to leave [Iowa City] Sunday night with no regrets, win or lose.”

The four wrestlers have been training under ISU coach Kevin Jackson, who was the Olympic freestyle coach from 2001 to 2008. Each of them was a three-time All-American at Iowa State and three — Trent Paulson, Reader and Zabriskie — of the four won national titles their senior seasons.

Despite having wrestled under the brightest lights of collegiate competition, wrestling for a shot to represent the United States at the Olympics can become an even bigger task in and of itself.

“In a big event like this, it’s easy to put a lot of pressure on yourself and get nervous and freeze up,” Trent said, who won the 157-pound national title in 2007. “The approach we’ve used is the KISS — keep it simple, stupid.”

At the 2008 Olympic Team Trials, Trent and Travis both fell short of qualifying for the U.S. Olympic freestyle team by finishing third at 66 kilograms (145.5 pounds) and 74 kilograms (163 pounds).

“You almost don’t need any extra motivation heading into the Olympic year,” Travis said. “It’s been our dream ever since we won our first state titles in high school.”

Unlike 2008, Trent and Travis will both be competing at 74 kilograms with a deep weight class that includes Jordan Burroughs, Andrew Howe, Kyle Dake and David Taylor.

Seven national titles and two Dan Hodge trophies for Outstanding Wrestler can be counted among Burroughs, Howe, Dake and Taylor. Burroughs is the only one of the four who has exhausted NCAA eligibility.

“It makes the feeling of making the team that much more,” Trent said. “I’d say it’s the deepest weight class this year, so if you’re able to get through that elite group of athletes and be on top and make the team, then you know you’ve truly earned it, and you’ll represent the U.S. well.”

Travis said the transition from folkstyle — which is practiced at the collegiate level — to freestyle was tough for them in 2008 having been only one year removed from collegiate competition.

“There’s quite a bit of learning involved with it,” Zabriskie said. “It’s a little bit different mentality in how you score points or how points are scored.”

Zabriskie, who won the 2010 national title at heavyweight, said he wrestled freestyle in high school to improve his folkstyle abilities but still found it to be a tough transition when he began his training for the Olympic trials in April 2010.

Known as one of the most well-conditioned heavyweights of his time while at Iowa State, Zabriskie has found the transition from folkstyle to freestyle challenging in one particular aspect.

“It’s really hard to get a guy tired in a two-minute period,” Zabriskie said. “In college, you get that first three-minute period and by the third period, you’ve already been wrestling for five minutes. In freestyle, there’s no guarantee it could go any longer than four.”

Reader, however, said he started freestyle when he was young and prefers its explosive nature to the domination-laden folkstyle.

“Wrestling is wrestling,” Reader said. “It correlates to both styles. There’s different strategy for both styles, but you’ve got to go out and wrestle the way you wrestle.”

One former Cyclone who has not been training in Ames with Reader and Co. is Jake Varner, who is just one of two four-time NCAA finalists in ISU history.

Since winning his second national title in 2010, Varner has been training with former ISU coach and current PSU coach Cael Sanderson in State College, Pa.

“He’s stopped in like once or twice,” Zabriskie said of Varner. “But outside of that, the only time we usually bump into him is out at the Olympic Training Center [in Colorado Springs, Colo.] at training camps.”

Sanderson, the first four-time finalist in ISU history and only undefeated wrestler in NCAA history, recently withdrew his name from this weekend’s competition and will not chase a second gold medal since attaining one in 2004.

Even with the goosebump-inducing possibility of representing the United States at the Olympics this summer staring them in the face, at least the venue won’t be overwhelming for the former Cyclones.

“We’re looking to go into Iowa City — we’ve been there before, we know what the arena looks like, we’ve seen pictures of the mats already — we’re ready to go,” Reader said. “Mentally, we’re ready too.”