What six women freestylers will compete in the Paris Olympics?

The following is a look at what wrestlers will be making the biggest impact at the six weight classes in women’s freestyle at the 2024 Olympic Trials, held April 19-20 in State College, Pa.

A Challenge Tournament will take place on Friday with the top finishers advancing to Saturday’s Best-of-3 Championship Series, where they will face individuals who either placed in last year’s Worlds or qualified the weight at the 2024 Pan Am Olympic Qualifier earlier this year.

WIN Magazine will provide updates from State College as well as present a comprehensive look back at the Trials in the next issue of WIN, which will be printed on May 1. Click here or call 888-305-0606 to subscribe.

50 kilos / 110 pounds

• Sarah Hildebrandt (NYAC/USOPTC) earned a spot in Saturday’s Best-of-3 Championship Series by earning a bronze medal in last fall’s World Championships. The 30-year-old native of Granger, Ind., will be shooting for a second Olympic spot after claiming a bronze medal in Tokyo in 2021. Overall, Hildebrandt is a five-time World/Olympic medalist; claiming silver medals in 2018 and 2021 and another bronze medal in 2022.
  

  Sarah Hildebrandt (top)

• Audrey Jimenez (Sunkist Kids) came up short against Hildebrandt in last year’s Final X but did earn a silver medal in the U20 World Championships in 2023. Still in high school, the Lehigh commitment has won both boys and girls state championships in Arizona for Sunnyside High.
• Erin Golston (New York Athletic Club), 30, is currently an assistant coach at Texas Wesleyan. The native of Marquette, Mich., has competed in three previous Olympic Trials. She is a five-time U.S. National Team member, who also earned three Junior World medals.
• Sage Mortimer (Titan Mercury WC), 21, won the 2023 Senior Nationals. The native of Springville, Utah, had transferred to Grand Valley State (which begins varsity competition this fall) after wrestling for two years at King University, where she earned two NCWWC All-American honors. She finished 12^th in the 2019 Cadet Worlds.
• Samara Chavez (Team Tornado WC) is also a three-time NCWWC All-American, including second in 2023 and third in 2024, from King and a native of Arlington, Texas.
• Other Notables: There are two 2024 NCWWC winners from Iowa, a pair of sophomores who could challenge at this weight: Emilie Gonzalez (101) and Ava Bayless (109). Gonzalez is from El Monte, Calif., who won a gold medal at the 2021 U17 Pan Ams. Bayless, from Greenville, Pa., won a National Prep title from Wyoming Seminary.

53 kilos / 116.5 pounds

• Dominique Parrish (Sunkist Kids) earned a spot in Saturday’s Best-of-3 Finals by qualifying the weight class for Team USA at the 2024 Pan American Olympic Games Qualifier this winter. The 27-year-old native of Scotts Valley, Calif., has ruled this weight the past two years, including 2022 when she won a gold medal at the World Championships.
  

  Dom Parrish (left)

• Jacarra Winchester (Titan Mercury WC/Cowboy RTC) will be trying to earn a spot on her second Olympic Team after she placed fifth at the Tokyo Games in 2021. The 31-year-old native from Oakland, Calif., won a World championship in 2019 at 55 kilos, the same weight class she earned a silver medal last fall. She also wrestled in the 2018 and 2022 Worlds.
• Haley Augello (Izzy Style WC), who finished ninth in the 2016 Olympics at 48 kilos, has returned to competition after taking three years off. The 29-year-old native of Lockport, Ill., also qualified for the 2017 Worlds at 53 kilos and finished eighth.
• Amy (Fearnside) Mason (Titan Mercury WC), 30, has competed in two World Championships; placing fifth in 2017 and 13^th in 2021.
• Vayle Baker (West Point WC), 24, earned a spot in the Olympic Trials when she won a 2023 Senior Nationals title. She finished seventh in the 2017 Cadet Worlds.
• Alisha Howk (Sunkist Kids WC), 24, finished second to Winchester in last summer’s Final X and was a four-time age-group World Team member. That included a bronze medal and eighth-place finish, respectively, in the 2022 and 2023 U23 Worlds.
• Katie Gomez (Sunkist Kids WC), 20, was a runner-up to Parrish in the 2022 Final X. She won a gold medal in the 2021 Cadet Worlds, a bronze in the 2022 U20 Worlds, then competed in both the U20 (fifth) and U23 (11^th) World Championships last summer and fall.
• Other Notables: Two women who won NCWWC titles this past March will be in action in Iowa’s Felicity Taylor (116) and North Central’s Amani Jones (123). Taylor has competed in two U23 Worlds (2019 and 2022 when she placed fifth). Jones won a bronze medal at the 2023 U20 Worlds.

57 kilos / 125.5 pounds

• Helen Maroulis (Sunkist Kids) earned a spot in Saturday’s Best-of-3 Finals when she earned silver medal in last year’s World Championships and will be shooting to make her third Olympic team. The 32-year-old native of Rockville, Md., is best known as the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in 2016 when she upset Japan’s 13-time World/Olympic champ Saori Yoshida in Rio. Five years later, she claimed a bronze medal at the Tokyo Games that were delayed one year. Overall, she has earned nine World/Olympic medals, including three World gold medals (2015, 2017 and 2021), two World silvers (2012, 2022) and another World bronze in 2014.
  

  Helen Maroulis (right)

• Xochitl Mota-Pettis (Rise RTC) is a 23-year-old native of Klein, Texas, who finished second to Maroulis in last summer’s Final X and later finished fifth in the U23 Worlds.
• Alexandra Hedrick (USOPTC/Titan Mercury WC) is a 26-year-old native of Fair Oaks, Calif., who also finished second to Maroulis in the 2022 Final X. She has also wrestled in two U23 Worlds, earning a bronze in 2022 finished seventh in 2021, while also wrestling in a pair of Junior Worlds (2018 and 2019).
• Abigail Nette (Army WCAP) is a native of St. Rose, La., who represented Team USA at the 2022 Worlds, where she finished 10^th. She also competed in two U23 Worlds, claiming 12^th in 2018 and seventh in 2019.
• Jennifer Page (Nittany Lion WC) earned a bronze medal at 59 kilos in the 2023 World Championships. The 31-year-old native of Sacramento, Calif., also earned a bronze medal in the 2013 Junior Worlds and wrestled in college at Oklahoma City.
• Amanda Martinez (CARTC/Titan Mercury WC) qualified for the Trials by winning the 2023 Senior Nationals title in December.

62 kilos / 136.5 pounds

• Kayla Miracle (Sunkist Kids) earned a spot in Saturday’s Best-of-3 Finals when she won the 2024 Pan American Olympic Games Qualifier. She also will be trying to make her second straight Olympic team after she settled for 12^th place at the Tokyo Games in 2021. Overall, the 27-year-old native of Bloomington, Ind. has represented this weight for the past five years. That included a pair of silver-medal performances in 2021 and 2022. She also wrestled for her dad, Lee, at Campbellsville (Ky.), where she won four national championships.
  

  Kayla Miracle (right)

• Macey Kilty (Sunkist Kids) won a silver medal at 65 kilos in last summer’s World championships after the 23-year-old native of Stratford, Wisc., suffered an injury and was forced to default against Miracle in the 2021 Olympic Trials. She also competed in last year’s U23 Worlds where she claimed fifth place. Overall, she has competed in six age-group World competitions, including a pair of silver medals in the 2019 Junior and U23 Worlds and a silver in the 2018 Junior Worlds; the same year she won back-to-back Cadet World titles.
• Mallory Velte (Titan Mercury WC/Beaver Dam WC) is a two-time World bronze medalist, in 2018 at 62 kilos and 2022 at 65 kilos. The 29-year-old native of Sacramento, Calif. also competed in the 2017 Worlds at 63 kilos.
• Adaugo Nwachukwu (William Penn) recently won her third straight NAIA championship and was named the 2024 Women’s College Wrestler of the Year. The 20-year-old native of San Jose, Calif., also earned a bronze medal at the U20 Worlds in 2022, then represented Team USA in the 2023 U20 (seventh) and U23 (10^th) World Championships.

68 kilos / 149.5 pounds

• Amit Elor (Titan Mercury WC/NYC RTC) earned a spot in Saturday’s Best-of-3 Finals when she reached the finals of the 2024 Pan American Olympic Games Qualifier. This is the weight class that Tamyra Mensah-Stock won in 2021, then retired two years later. Elor, a 20-year-old native of Walnut Creek, Calif., has dominated World competition at several different age groups the past four years; winning gold medals in the 2022 and 2023 Worlds at 72 kilos, three straight Junior Worlds (2021, 2022 and 2023) and 72 and 68 kilos and a Cadet World championship in 2021 at 68k.
  

  Amit Elor (right)

• Forrest Molinari (Sunkist Kids), 28, has qualified for three World Championships, all at 65 kilos; placing fifth in 2018 and 2019, before she earned a bronze medal in the 2021 Worlds. The native of Benicia, Calif., won a national championship for King University in 2016; her third of four All-American honors.
• Alara Boyd (Cardinal WC), 22, a former college national champion for McKendree, represented Team USA in four age-group World Championships; claiming bronze and silver medals at the Cadet Worlds, respectively, in 2016 and 2017, before finishing eighth and fifth, respectively, in the 2019 and 2021 Junior World Championships.

76 kilos / 167.5 pounds

• Adeline Gray (New York AC) qualified for Saturday’s Best-of-3 Finals when she won a bronze medal at the 2023 World Championships. Now a 33-year-old mother of two children, the native of Denver, Colo., is shooting for her third-straight Olympics. In 2016, she went 1-1 in Rio, then came back and claimed a silver medal at the Tokyo Games in 2021. No American woman has earned more World/Olympic medals than Gray, who has won six World gold medals (2012, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2021) and two other bronze World medals (2011 and 2010).
  

  Adeline Gray (right)

• Kennedy Blades (Sunkist Kids), 20, is a native of Broadview, Ill., who first attended Wyoming Seminary before training full-time in Tempe, Ariz. She finished second at 68 kilos in the 2021 Olympic Trials before going on to win a Junior World championship that year. She also competed in the 2019 Cadet Worlds and finished ninth. Last year, she finished second to Gray in Final X, before earning a bronze medal at the U23 Worlds.
• Dymond Guilford (Titan Mercury WC/USOPTC), a 24-year-old native of Lancaster, Calif., represented Team USA at the 2022 World Championships and the U23 Worlds, where she earned a silver medal. She also placed 11^th at the 2018 Junior Worlds.
• Kylie Welker (Titan Mercury WC/Iowa Women’s WC) is a 19-year-old college sophomore who recently won a NCWWC title for Iowa. She lost to Gray in the finals of the 2021 Olympic Trials. The native of Franksville, Wisc., also represented Team USA at 72 kilos in the 2021 World Championships (10^th), the same year she won a Junior World title and bronze medal at the U23 Worlds.