Fargo 2027: the Junior and 16U Nationals

Fargo is the U.S. Marine Corps Junior and 16U Nationals, USA Wrestling's national championship for high school age wrestlers in freestyle and Greco-Roman, known in USA Wrestling's own words as the world's largest wrestling competition. USA Wrestling runs it, the U.S. Marine Corps is the title sponsor, and everyone in the sport just says Fargo.

It crowns national champions in the three Olympic disciplines, men's freestyle, women's freestyle and Greco-Roman, in two age groups, Junior and 16U.

The scale is the point. The 2026 edition ran over nine days and expected roughly 9,000 entries; the 2025 tournament was contested across 30 mats. The first Junior Nationals was held in Iowa City in 1971 with only a men's freestyle division, and 2026 was its 55th year; the only season missed was 2020, to the pandemic. The 16U tournament, then the Cadet Nationals, merged into the same event in 1996.

At the FARGODOME on the North Dakota State University campus, 1800 North University Drive in Fargo, North Dakota, its home since 1993 by USA Wrestling's history of the event. Before that the tournament moved: Iowa City, Cedar Falls, Warrensburg in Missouri, and St. Paul.

In 2026 tickets were sold through North Dakota State's ticketing system and at the FARGODOME box office during the event. State teams often book a team hotel (the Washington and Utah team pages linked below each name one), so ask your state association before you book your own.

USA Wrestling has not posted the 2027 dates: its National and Regional Events table, read on 6 October 2026, runs to 24 June 2027 and has no Fargo row. So this page gives the month, July 2027, and the dates state associations print, as theirs.

Two, both women's freestyle: Junior women, for girls in grades 9 to 12, and 16U women, for girls born in 2011 or 2012, each wrestling 16 weight classes from 95 to 235 pounds on USA Wrestling's 2027 age chart.

The Junior line on the same chart reads "Born 9/1/2007 & after, plus enrolled in grades 9-12". For a summer event USA Wrestling counts the spring semester just before it, so a senior who graduates in the spring can still wrestle Junior at Fargo that summer. A 16U girl may enter Junior as well: in 2026, six women wrestled both. In 2026 a Junior match was two three-minute periods and a 16U match two two-minute periods, with 30 seconds of rest between. The weights are on the weight classes page with every other age group.

Only a wrestler her state enters: USA Wrestling's event page says every athlete must "go through their respective state to register" and calls Fargo "not an open event". Each state may take up to four wrestlers per age group, style and weight class, and she needs a USA Wrestling athlete membership, because registration takes none without a valid membership number.

Some wrestlers do not count against the four. In 2026 the automatic qualifiers were a top six at a USA Wrestling regional, a top eight at that year's U15, U17 or U20 Nationals, a top eight at the previous year's Junior or 16U Nationals, and a place on the previous year's age group U.S. World Team, each in the same style.

Everything else is set at state level and differs from state to state. Two things are common to most: the state's own freestyle and Greco-Roman championships, usually in April or May, and a USA Wrestling regional championship. Seven of those run each spring, in the Northwest, Western, Northern Plains, Central, Southern Plains, Northeast and Southeast, and every regional date we could read off USA Wrestling's own page is on the calendar. Washington's rule, for one, takes a top three at its state freestyle championship, a top six at any USA Wrestling regional or a top eight at a UWW qualifier.

The practical answer for a high school girl: wrestle your state series in the winter, then ask your state association in February what its freestyle season looks like. The team is usually full by June. USA Wrestling publishes each state team roster in the weeks before the event as the state association submits it. The other national tournaments with a girls' division, from Preseason Nationals in October to the Women's National Duals in June, are on the national calendar.

2002 is the year women's freestyle came to Fargo. The Junior women's division was contested for the first time that summer, and Rachel Holthaus of Minnesota won at 95 pounds to become the first Junior women's champion in the tournament's history. USA Wrestling still measures state streaks from that year.

The 16U girls' division started in 2011. Until then the Junior bracket was the only one a girl could enter, whatever her age, so a 15 year old wrestled the seniors. The two divisions now run back to back at the end of the week.

The growth is the story a rankings list will not tell you. In 2026 the Junior girls' division set a record with 1,269 wrestlers and the 16U girls' division drew 1,024, its second straight year over a thousand. Six wrestlers entered both, so 2,287 individual women competed, the most ever in the women's divisions at Fargo, and 39 states put a wrestler on a podium. Pennsylvania won both women's team titles.

FloWrestling is the host broadcast partner and streams every mat. A subscription is required, and there is no free feed. flowrestling.org

USA Bracketing carries the brackets and live results, free, and is where to follow a wrestler match by match. usabracketing.com

USA Wrestling's own event hub carries the session schedule, the state team rosters as they are submitted, and the ticket link through the North Dakota State box office. The 2026 event page is the shape the 2027 one will take.