USA Olympic Wrestling Trials 2021 Brings Triumph and the Next Generation

Photo courtesy Tony Rotundo

As the Olympics were delayed a year, so many stories have changed in the women’s divisions of freestyle wrestling.

Saturday night, six women punched their ticket to the Tokyo Games and will wrestle from August 1-7 to hopefully become Gold medalists.

Two familiar faces will be returning to the Olympics: 53 kg Gold Medalist in the 2016 Games Helen Maroulis (who qualified a weight up at 57 kg) and Adeline Gray at 76 kg, who looks for her first medal. Joining them are Sarah Hildebrandt (50kg), Jacarra Winchester (53 kg), Kayla Miracle (62 kg), and Tamyra Mensah-Stock (68 kg).

#HowShewrestles campaign kicks off watch the videos and get inspired

The #HowSheWrestles Campaign kicked off Sunday as many female wrestlers showed how they have overcome adversity from loss, to discrimination, and learning to believe in themselves.

The day kicked off with a panel discussion hosted by Anna Lee-Marie, a pioneering journalist in the wrestling world.

You can watch the hour long sessions here.

This was soon followed by wrestlers on social media telling their own stories. We have most of them below, but you can check out the hashtag #HowSheWrestles on socila media to find more.

Video: Wrestler Katherine Shai Talks #HowSheWrestles and Lack of Media in Women’s Wrestling

With lack of coverage and spotlight, women’s wrestling has decided to fight back.

#HowSheWrestles is a campaign to gain these athletes a platform. The campaign started after several wrestlers recognized FloWrestling was not giving them coverage in either video form or written.

We talked to Katherine Shai about the struggles for recognition, her advice to heklp fix the problem, and and her project to show athletes daily lives during Covid-19.

“Girls, Grappling, and Grit” Accepted to Artemis Film Festival; Premiere Set for April

Wombat Sports, in conjunction with Flairdog Productions, is proud to announce “Girls, Grappling, and Grit” will have its world premiere at the Artemis Film Festival April 28th at 12:40 p.m. at the Monica Film Center, 1332 2nd Street in Santa Monica, California.

Furture Stars: Video Interview with Courtney Cardoza

It has been over a decade and Courtney Cardoza can call herself a combat sports vet.

Having done Brazilian jujitsu and pankration in the past, she has become a champion on the wrestling mats in regional competitions and will finally represent her school as Arizona will have a scholastic women’s wrestling tournament this coming school year.

Help us Create a New Wombat Sports

As I explained in my open letter, I am looking to change Wombat Sports to what it was initially meant to be. I can’t do this on my own, and that;s where you come in.

We are looking for contributors to help with writing articles and covering certain combat sports. You would also get to interview talented athletes in those sports.

The main contributors we are looking for is in women’s boxing, Muay Thai, freestyle wrestling, and BJJ. (We already have some people interested in covering the WMMA portion of the site). The cool things is I have the tools to gain news and info for these sports, just not the time to write it up. You can “learn on the job” if you aren’t an expert on these topics; but being curious is the key thing.

You can learn more about what I am expecting and what benefits come with being a part of Wombat Sports here.

Women’s College Wrestling Continues Expansion with Five New Teams

Freshman Kiaya Van Scoyoc of Warner Pacific University

The extraordinary expansion of women’s wrestling continues this year as five more colleges have added wrestling teams for this coming season.

Among them:

• Eastern Michigan University
• Life University (Georgia)
• Lyon University (Arkansas)
• Ottawa University (Kansas)
• Warner Pacific College (Oregon)

This starts what will be a three year expansion, with sixteen more teams to be added on the collegiate level according to National Wrestling Coaches Associations. The hope is more females will also lead these grapplers as coaches.

This year 220 female wrestlers will join the collegiate level teams and it doesn’t look like it will slow down anytime soon. Many girls interested in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and possible making the leap to MMA are seeing wrestling as an outlet to hone their skills. More and more states are hold women’s championships including California, Oregon, Guam, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas, Hawaii, and Washington.

This years WCWA National Women’s Wrestling Finals Tournament will take place at Missouri Baptist University in St. Louis, MO February 13.

For more info check out USA Wrestling Weekly’s show here.