It's also one of the toughest.
And it features some of the best domestic competition you will ever see when USA Wrestling's annual Cadet and Junior Nationals are contested in Fargo, N.D.
It's a huge mid-summer extravaganza that features 20-plus mats, thousands of top high school wrestlers and hundreds of elite-level matches.
There will be plenty of future stars descending on eastern North Dakota when the 2018 Cadet and Junior Nationals kicks off this week.
Looking back on the decade I spent covering the event for USA Wrestling, you can see just how important this mammoth tournament has been in the development of American wrestlers in the international styles of freestyle and Greco-Roman.
Very few people knew it at the time, but the stacked Cadet 98-pound weight bracket 12 years ago in Fargo featured a pair of wrestlers who would go on to become superstars.
Those wrestlers were David Taylor and Kyle Dake.
The first year I covered the Fargo event in 2006, Taylor won the Cadet Nationals championship in both styles at 98 pounds. Dake was third in freestyle and Greco. Dake later gained the upper hand over Taylor in college and internationally.
Taylor and Dake, as most wrestling observers know, went on to combine for six NCAA titles and three Hodge Trophy awards. Now they're both on the powerful U.S. Senior world team in freestyle this year with both considered serious contenders to win world titles.
The 2006 Cadet Nationals also featured a pair of champions who went on to excel internationally.
Competing one weight class above Taylor and Dake, Logan Stieber captured the Cadet freestyle title at 105 pounds. Stieber went on to win four NCAA titles before winning a world title in 2016.
Ben Provisor won a Cadet Greco title in 2006 before going on to make two Olympic teams.
Winning Cadet freestyle titles at 112 and 119 pounds that year in Fargo were Jordan Oliver and Matt McDonough, who each went on to win two NCAA titles. The wrestler who placed fifth in Oliver's 2006 bracket was Tony Ramos, who went on to win an NCAA title before making two world teams on the Senior level.
Competing on a huge stage like Fargo provides excellent preparation for these top wrestlers as they progress toward their ultimate goals of winning world and Olympic titles. They wrestle a large number of matches and gain a ton of valuable mat time during an important phase of their development as athletes.
J'den Cox holds up a stop sign after winning a Junior National freestyle title in 2012 (Photo/John Sachs, Tech-Fall.com)Three years later, Snyder became the youngest American to win a world freestyle title on the Senior level before becoming the youngest U.S. wrestler to win the Olympics in 2016. He followed that with his second world title to lift the United States to a dramatic team title at the 2017 World Championships.
Cox hasn't been too shabby himself. He won Olympic and world bronze the past two years.
Snyder and Cox, who earned three NCAA titles apiece, look like contenders to win world titles for the U.S. this year.
Another future star was a double Junior champion in Fargo in 2012. That was heavyweight Adam Coon, who made his first Senior world team in Greco this year.
Coon paid his dues as he developed while coming up through the USA Wrestling ranks. He captured a Cadet world title before becoming a Junior world medalist.
2017 world silver medalist Thomas Gilman was another wrestler whose development was accelerated under the spotlight on the elevated mat in the Fargo Dome.
Gilman won Junior and Cadet Nationals in freestyle before going on to a standout career at Iowa. One of the wrestlers he beat en route to winning Junior Nationals was Cory Clark, who later won Junior Nationals titles in freestyle and Greco before winning an NCAA title for the Hawkeyes.
My last year of covering Fargo was in 2015, and there were plenty of talented wrestlers who made an impact that year. Daton Fix and Gable Steveson were two champions who really caught my attention that summer.
Fix and Steveson each still have four years of college eligibility remaining and are extremely advanced for their ages. They have tremendous upsides at the collegiate and international levels.
They've benefited from competing in Fargo and taking advantage of opportunities to face top foreign competitors overseas.
Fix won a Junior world title in 2017 after being a Junior and Cadet world bronze medalist. Fix is now ranked No. 2 on the Senior level after falling to Gilman in the Final X last month in Lincoln.
Steveson, a multi-talented heavyweight, has been on an incredible roll. He won back-to-back Cadet world titles in 2015 and 2016 before capturing a Junior world title last year. He has also excelled on the Senior level this year. It is going to be enjoyable to track his progress in the next four years and beyond.
The best American women's freestyle wrestlers also have followed a road to success that has traveled through North Dakota.
The 2007 Junior women's tournament featured a top-flight field that included champions Helen Maroulis, Adeline Gray and Tatiana Padilla.
Maroulis became the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in wrestling in 2016 before capturing her second world title last year. Gray is a three-time world champion and five-time world medalist. Padilla won two world medals and is currently excelling in the Ultimate Fighting Championships.
No doubt, the experience these athletes gained in Fargo helped propel them to the high level of success they've enjoyed on the world level.
There is a reason why so many college coaches journey to Fargo each July to recruit. There is an abundance of top-level talent. And it gives them a chance to see how these athletes perform in a pressure-packed and highly competitive environment.
The Cadet and Junior Nationals remains one of the biggest and best events on the wrestling calendar.
And when you consider all of the current Senior-level stars who have wrestled and thrived in that event, it is easy to see why.
Who will be the next future star who competes in Fargo?
Keep a close eye on what happens at this year's event. You may just see the next great American wrestler.
Craig Sesker has written about wrestling for more than three decades. He's covered three Olympic Games and is a two-time national wrestling writer of the year.
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