Jacarra Winchester celebrates after winning her first 55-kg World title for Team USA in September 2019 at the World Championships in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. Photo courtesy of United World Wrestling.
The wrestling community is spoiled in summer/fall 2021 with three incredibly high-level freestyle and Greco competitions roughly two months apart.
First, we had a fantastic 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games for Team USA in August. Currently, we are just a day away from the 2021 World Team Trials in Lincoln, Nebraska. Then, looking forward, we are already less than three weeks away from the start of the 2021 World Championships in Oslo, Norway, October 2-10.
What makes the 2021 iteration of Team Trials all the more compelling is that we will see matchups that we don't often see and likely have never seen before in men’s and women’s freestyle. All four women's freestyle 2020 Olympic medalists chose to accept the World Team's automatic bid. With that in mind, (50 kg – Sarah Hildebrandt, 57 kg – Helen Maroulis, 68 kg – Tamyra Mensah-Stock, and 76 kg – Adeline Gray) are the uncontested weights in Lincoln this weekend.
Thus, the rest of the field has jumped up or down a weight class to chase a World Team berth at the remaining weights (53 kg, 55 kg, 59 kg, 62 kg, 65 kg, and 72 kg).
Here are some things to be on the lookout for this weekend in Nebraska on the women's freestyle side of things.
53 Kilograms is Stacked: Much the same way that 61 kg is talent-heavy in men's freestyle, the 53-kg field is one of the toughest on the women's side as many traditional 50-kg stars bumped to 53 kilos after Sarah Hildebrandt brought home bronze in Tokyo.
In a weight that was seeded 10 spots deep, we have a plethora of highly credentialed wrestlers. No. 1 seed is Ronna Heaton, a U.S. Olympic Team Trials runner-up and former Cadet World champion. Dom Parrish, the No. 2 seed, has a third-place finish from Olympic Team Trials and was a previous Senior National champion. In the No. 3 spot, Alyssa Lampe, has a pair of World bronzes. Lastly, Alex Hedrick, a U.S. Senior Nationals champion and multiple-time age-group World Teamer. Hedrick rounds out the Top-4.
Not surprisingly, a weight with more than 20 entries has some serious depth, and there will be no easy matches. Future King University Tornado Sage Mortimer, who qualified for the Olympic Trials last year as a high schooler, is an interesting name to keep an eye on at this weight. The Utah native has spent considerable time atop the lightweight leaderboards as one of the nation's best preps over the years. This summer, Mortimer took home an unprecedented fifth Fargo stop sign in what was an illustrious prep tenure. It will be interesting to see how she handles Senior-level competition before suiting up for her first collegiate dual.
Expect a Clash of High School Stars at 72 kg: The 72-kg class will be a fun one to watch this weekend in Nebraska. Fans get to see two of the best young talents in women's wrestling with Kennedy Blades and Kylie Welker, both Junior World gold medalists, who will be the faces of women's wrestling in the United States in the Olympic cycles to come. Earlier this year, at just 17 years old, Blades (68 kg) and Welker (76 kg) both made it to the best-of-three finals at the Olympic Team Trials in Fort Worth, Texas.
Should Kennedy and Kylie meet in the finals, Welker will look to avenge a high-scoring 16-6 second-period technical fall from the Last Chance Olympic Qualifier at 68 kg from March 2021. Check out that match below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTp6SMSgpU0
Jacarra is Back at 55 kg: After narrowly missing out on an Olympic medal earlier this summer at 53 kg, Jacarra Winchester is back on the mats, but at a more comfortable 55 kg, where she won a World title in 2019 and a 2021 Pan-Am Championships crown earlier this year. As a result of her fifth-place performance in Tokyo, Winchester has automatically earned the right to advance to the event semifinals at 55 kg.
Miracle Looks to Bounce Back After a Tough Tokyo: Olympian Kayla Miracle has drawn the top pre-seed at 62 kg. After failing to compete for a medal in Tokyo, she must win her weight once again to punch her ticket to Oslo next month to try for a World medal.
Miracle will use the opportunity to redeem herself from the heartbreak she experienced in Tokyo, dropping a nail-bitter in her opening-round bout at the Olympics, 3-2, to Jia Long of China. That was the only match the Miracle would wrestle in Tokyo.
For Miracle, a Campbellsville University product, the path to a second straight World Team will be no easy feat. 2018 World bronze medalist and two-time Senior World Team member Mallory Velte, two-time Senior Nationals champion Jennifer Page, and youngster Gracie Figueroa, a Cadet World medalist, are among the Top-4 seeds at the weight. Figueroa also won the 2021 Senior Nationals title at this weight class.
Molinari Leads Way at 65 kg: Top-seeded Forrest Molinari is very credentialed and favored to take the 65 kg crown home. The Sunkist Kids resident athlete has a pair of fifth-place finishes at the Senior World Championships (2018 and 2019 at 65 kg) and has won three Senior National crowns as well. Most recently, Molinari moved up to 68 kg for the Olympic Team Trials, where she placed third behind eventual Olympic gold medalist Tamyra Mensah-Stock and high school phenom Kennedy Blades, who recently won a World gold in Ufa, Russia, at 72 kg.
https://twitter.com/theopenmat/status/1435600755558436868
No matter what weight, it's going to be a fun weekend of scrappin' in the Cornhusker state and Team USA will surely be represented well in Oslo in October no matter who the starting 10 will be.
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