USA Olympic Team Trials Recap

Photo by Tony Rotundo

On Friday April 19th, at the Bryce Jordan Center at Penn State, 61 female wrestlers across the 6 Olympic weight classes went to battle in the challenger tournament, with the winner facing the wrestler who qualified the weight in a best 2/3 final. On Saturday April 20th, the best 2/3 finals went down and the 6 women heading to Paris 2024 representing USA were decided!

The 6 women who will representing USA in Paris 2024 are:

Sarah Hildenbrandt - 50kg

Dom Parrish - 53kg

Helen Maroulis - 57kg

Kayla Miracle - 62kg

Amit Elor - 68kg

Kennedy Blades - 76kg

All 6 women won two consecutive matches, with Kennedy Blades being the only wrestler to win who wasn't sitting out in the finals already. She took out former two-time Olympian (and previous coach), Adeline Gray in an extremely impressive performance both matches.

Here are some highlights from all 6 of the match series:

50kg - Sarah Hildenbrandt vs Audrey Jiminez

Sarah won a bronze medal in Tokyo and Audrey is a 17 year old high school student from Arizona. Audrey put up an impressive performance in the challenger tournament, defeating Nyla Valencia 10-0, Erin Golston 10-0 and Sage Mortimer 10-6. But Sarah showed why she has been the top 50kg female in the USA for many years. Sarah won both finals matches by technical seniority, 10-0, showing her incredible offensive AND defensive abilities!

53kg - Dom Parrish vs Haley Augello

Previous 2022 World champion, Dom Parrish punches her ticket to her first Olympic games with two wins over 34 year old Haley Augello. Haley Augello came out of retirement and climbed her way to the finals with close matches over Felicity Taylor (5-1) and Katie Gomez (4-1) where she defeated Areana Villaescus 3-0 in the finals. She showed persistence in the finals against Dom, but Parrish stayed composed to win two matches 2-1 and 5-2.

57kg - Helen Maroulis vs Jacarra Winchester

Jacarra Winchester was unable to make 53kg for the challenger tournament that she had a bye to the semis for, putting her in the same weight class as former 2016 Olympic champion, Helen Maroulis. Jacarra came out of the challenger tournament with 11-0 semis win over Abigail Nette and close 4-2 finals win over Alex Hedrick (who also put up an impressive performance, defeating Xochitl Mota-Pettis 14-3 earlier). The finals matchup included two multiple world medalists, but Helen has two dominate wins over Jacarra, one by fall and other 6-0.

62kg - Kayla Miracle vs Macey Kilty

62kg was the deepest weight at OTT's with 4 world medalists in the weight (Miracle, Kilty, Page and Velte). There was many close matches in the challenger tournament, including Page's 8-7 win over Velte and Kilty's 9-8 win over Page. While Kilty put up a good fight in the finals, Kayla Miracle, like the rest of the winners so far, showed why she earned the right to sit out in the finals. With two wins 8-5 and 4-1, she is back on another Olympic team.

68kg - Amit Elor vs Forrest Molinari

While I expected Amit to win this finals, the fashion in which she did so was not what I expected. Molinari who came out of the challenger tournament with extremely close finals win over Alex Glaude 4-3 put up an extremely impressive fight with pummelling against the immensely strong Elor. Amit wasn't able to dominate with her forward pressure as usual, but remain composed, threw out some insane doubles and secured two wins 6-0 and 2-1. This is her first of hopefully many Olympic teams.

76kg - Kennedy Blades vs Adeline Gray

After Kennedy Blades teched everyone she met in the challenger tournament, she went on to be the only wrestler to take out the top seed, sitting out in the finals, Adeline Gray. Kennedy lost to Adeline in a very dramatic best 2/3 comeback series for Adeline, missing out on her first chance to make a senior national team. But this time around she stayed discipline in her defense and maintained her incredible offense throughout the whole match. She won two straight matches 11-6 and 8-3, sending her to Paris, and keeping Adeline off her third Olympic team.

Written by Natalie Vecchio