One year after winning the second National Championship of his college career, Askren is ready for his next big challenge.

"I've improved a lot since last year, and changed a lot of deficiencies I've had since college, that didn't carry over into internationals," Askren explained. "I fixed those, and now I'm getting down to business."

Askren is the number one overall seed for his weight class for the qualifiers. He expects a better outcome this year than his sixth place finish in his last Olympic qualifier.

"That's what I've wanted to do, I've always wanted to be an olympian when I got older and got better, so it's been in my sites for a couple years now," Askren said.

Since the qualifiers in 2004, Askren has added two individual National Championships, two Dan Hodge Awards, given to the best collegiate wrestler in the country and a first place finish in the U.S. Open this summer. He has high hopes for claiming a plane ticket to China this year.

Former Tiger wrestler Matt Pell has earned the sixth seed for his weight class, and Askren's brother Max will also compete for the olympics as a five seed in his.