Olympic gold medalist Jordan Burroughs visits Sidney

2012 Olympic gold medalist Jordan Burroughs made an appearance at Sunday's Federation wrestling meet in Sidney.

Burroughs grew up wrestling in New Jersey, and received a scholarship to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2006. He wrestled for the Huskers under coach Mark Manning.

According to his online biography, he amassed 111 wins and took only six losses in his college career for the Huskers. He finished his junior and senior campaigns with undefeated records (in 2009 he was 35-0 and in 2011, 36-0). He concluded his collegiate career with three Big 12 titles, two national championships and the Hodge Trophy for his senior season.

After college, Burroughs won his first American Open in freestyle wrestling and went on to win a world championship title in Istanbul, Turkey. In 2012, he became an Olympic gold medalist by defeating Sadegh Saeed Goudarzi. In 2013, he became only the second American wrestler to win three World or Olympic gold medals in a row. Burroughs once again made the world team bringing home a bronze medal in 2014.

According to Burroughs' bio, he defeated four-time NCAA Champion Kyle Dake in two matches to make his fifth World/Olympic team in a row at the World Team Trials in Wisconsin last June. On Sept. 12, Burroughs won his fourth world crown making him one of only three U.S. wrestlers to win four combined world or Olympic gold medals.

Burroughs took the time to sign each of the Sidney wrestlers' hats, shirts and shoes Sunday morning in the middle school gym. He paused to take photos with each one of them before heading to the packed high school gymnasium to present a plaque to longtime Federation wrestling volunteer Steven Vach. Burroughs was joined by his wife, Lauren Mariacher, and son, Beacon Burroughs, at Sunday's event.

Burroughs' cameo at the meet on Sunday was arranged by Gina Christensen and Jake Havorka.

"I contacted his (Burroughs) agent, because we were thinking of ways to give Steven his plaque and it turned into this," Christensen said. "The kids are very excited, they have been talking about this all week."

Burroughs will compete in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.