• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

American Gold Sports Alliance

  • Home
  • About Us
    • Media
    • Featured News
    • Diversity and Inclusion Committee
    • Youth Advisory Committee
    • Wrestling for Gold Initiative
  • Raffles
  • Radiosport
  • Try Cricket
  • Athlete of the Month
  • Camps
  • Join Our Team
    • Richard Montgomery Wrestling
    • Richard Montgomery Girls Lacrosse
  • Donate
    • Giving Tuesday
  • Contact Us

Helen Maroulis makes record third Olympic team

April 23, 2024 by Tara S

Helen Maroulis makes record third Olympic team
  • By Nick Zaccardi | NBC Sports

STATE COLLEGE, Pennsylvania — Helen Maroulis, the first U.S. female wrestler to win Olympic gold, will this summer become the oldest U.S. woman to wrestle at an Olympics and the first to wrestle at three Games.

Maroulis, 32, headlines the first 13 members of the Olympic wrestling team, decided at trials on Saturday at Penn State University.

She’ll be joined in Paris by veterans, including fellow 2016 Olympic champion Kyle Snyder, and newcomers, including 20-year-old world champion Amit Elor, who was one day too young to compete at the last trials and will become the youngest U.S. Olympic female wrestler in history.

Missing the team: Tokyo Olympic gold medalist David Taylor, who lost to NCAA Wrestler of the Year Aaron Brooks; six-time world champion Adeline Gray, who lost to Kennedy Blades, and 2012 Olympic gold medalist Jordan Burroughs, who was eliminated on the trials’ first day Friday.

Maroulis swept two-time world medalist Jacarra Winchester in their best-of-three series Saturday to earn the Olympic spot at 57kg.

Maroulis was last beaten for a spot on the national team at the 2012 Olympic Trials. Since, she won four gold, two silver and three bronze medals between the Olympics and world championships, including that breakthrough Olympic title in 2016.

She briefly retired in 2019 due to concussions and post-traumatic stress disorder, then came back to win Olympic bronze in Tokyo and a world medal of every color the last three years.

“I was giving my dad a hard time because, two years ago, he said, ‘Hey, no more medals. Just retire. Get married. Have kids,’” Maroulis said. “I was like, ‘Let me go one more, dad.’”

Leading into these trials, Maroulis said she was in a car accident and dealt with a two-week “deep sickness.”

Snyder, 28, swept Isaac Trumble to make his third Olympic team. Snyder won a 97kg medal at each of the last nine global championships (Olympics/worlds), including becoming the youngest U.S. wrestler to win Olympic gold eight years ago.

“I always say I feel like I’m just getting started,” said Snyder, a former Ohio State Buckeye who has trained at Penn State since 2019. “I don’t even feel like I’ve accomplished anything. I’m hungry and motivated, and I want to keep wrestling, Lord willing, for a long time.”

0 seconds of 9 minutes, 59 secondsVolume 0%

Kyle Dake, a four-time world champion, fills the 74kg spot for a second consecutive Games after sweeping fellow Nittany Lion Wrestling Club member Jason Nolf.

Dake’s father, Doug, who introduced him to wrestling and coached him in high school, died last week.

“It’s the first time that I had to do this without him,” Dake said. “I just really miss him and wish he was here. I wanted to do him proud, and it’s hard to find the words to say how much he means to me.”

Like Dake, Sarah Hildebrandt won bronze in Tokyo and is undefeated against Americans since 2017. She made her seventh consecutive Olympic or world team by sweeping 17-year-old Arizona high school senior Audrey Jimenez at 50kg.

Elor succeeds retired Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Tamyra Mensah-Stock as the U.S. rep at 68kg after beating Forrest Molinari. In 2022, Elor became at age 18 the youngest American wrestler to win a world title, then repeated last year, both at 72kg, which is not an Olympic weight. Her last defeat to a countrywoman was at age 11 in 2015.

Brooks, who last month won a fourth consecutive NCAA title for Penn State, became the first American to defeat Taylor since 2017, not counting injury defaults.

Brooks beat Zahid Valencia on Friday at 10:45 p.m., then spent nearly three hours cutting 12 pounds by striding on a treadmill next to UFC fighter, former NCAA champion and coach Bo Nickal, wrestling and spending time in the sauna, went to sleep at 2 a.m., woke up at 6, made weight by 8 and then won his first match over Taylor at 12:45 p.m.

Taylor, his Nittany Lion Wrestling Club teammate, was rested with a bye into the finals as a reigning world medalist.

0 seconds of 13 minutes, 37 secondsVolume 0%

Blades, a runner-up to Mensah-Stock at the Tokyo trials at age 17, became the first American to unseat Gray for an Olympic or world team spot since the 2012 London Games. She will become the second-youngest U.S. woman to wrestle at the Olympics after Elor.

“This was, honestly, my goal since I was 7 and we did the calculations, like, OK, I would be old enough (in 2024),” Blades said.

Also Saturday, five wrestlers won weight classes where the U.S. has not yet qualified an Olympic quota spot: Spencer Lee (freestyle 57kg), Zain Retherford (freestyle 65kg), Dalton Roberts (Greco-Roman 60kg), 2012 Olympian Ellis Coleman (Greco-Roman 67kg) and Kamal Bey (Greco-Roman 77kg).

Those five men will clinch Olympic spots if they finish in the top three in their classes at a last-chance international Olympic qualifier in Turkiye in May.

Filed Under: Olympics, Women's Wrestling, Wrestling

Primary Sidebar

Donate Here!

Categories

Featured Posts

Introducing the Vulcan Pickleball Line in Support of the AGSA!

… [Read More...] about Introducing the Vulcan Pickleball Line in Support of the AGSA!

Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Names WNBA Trio to Class of 2025

… [Read More...] about Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Names WNBA Trio to Class of 2025

2026 Expansion Team Denver Breaks NWSL Ticket Sales Record

… [Read More...] about 2026 Expansion Team Denver Breaks NWSL Ticket Sales Record

Archives

  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • February 2023
  • November 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • June 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Raffles
  • Radiosport
  • Try Cricket
  • Athlete of the Month
  • Camps
  • Join Our Team
  • Donate
  • Contact Us

Copyright © 2025 American Gold Sports Alliance Inc.

Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy