Three-time Olympic medalist Helen Maroulis has made an unexpected return to competitive wrestling and she is bringing a powerful message about the sport’s remarkable growth among young women across America.
Women’s wrestling is already the fastest-growing sport in high schools in America, and so I see that continuing, especially as it now has NCAA Division I sports status. And so I think when we see more programs at women’s wrestling, we’re going to see a lot more girls. There’s going to be a lot more opportunities.
The 33-year-old athlete, who made history in 2016 as the first American woman to win Olympic gold in wrestling, secured her spot on the U.S. team for the upcoming World Championships in Croatia after dominating Amanda Martinez at Saturday’s Final X event. This marks her 15th career Olympic or world team appearance dating back to 2008.
Her return comes after a brief retirement earlier this year when she pursued jiu-jitsu.
To be honest, I didn’t want to come back. I was so at peace with it. I had moved on to jiu-jitsu. I love jiu-jitsu. I was like, oh, similar sport, but way less hard on the body.
However, about eight weeks before the competition, something changed.
One day, God just told me to go back to Phoenix to train. I went back, and it was like all of a sudden in a week, I just moved out of my place in New York and trained full-time.
The decision proved worthwhile, though Maroulis admits the journey has not been straightforward. She previously retired in 2019 due to concussions and post-traumatic stress disorder and recently overcame additional health obstacles including a mast cell histamine issue.
I was really questioning, should I be back? But then everything comes together at the end.
Maroulis’s optimism about women’s wrestling reflects documented trends. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, girls now make up 18 percent of high school wrestlers. This growth helped overall wrestling participation at the high school level reach 356,131 for the 2023-24 school year.
The momentum behind women’s wrestling accelerated significantly when Indiana became the 46th state to sanction girls’ wrestling at the high school level last November. Prior to Hawaii becoming the first state to do so in 1998, girls who wanted to wrestle at the high school level had to compete directly against boys.
The NCAA’s decision earlier this year to add women’s wrestling as its 91st championship sport represents another milestone for the discipline. Divisions I, II and III approved the addition at the Association’s annual Convention in January with the first women’s wrestling championship scheduled for 2026.
We are thrilled that women’s wrestling will be an NCAA sport. We extend a big thank you to everyone who supported this effort and the athletes, coaches and fans for their passion for a fast-growing and exciting sport that brings even more opportunities for women to participate in athletics.
There were 76 women’s wrestling programs at NCAA schools in 2023-24 with projections pointing to an additional 17 programs in 2024-25. More than 1,200 women wrestlers are competing at NCAA schools in 2025 and the sport demonstrates notable diversity with at least 45 percent of the student-athletes competing from diverse or international backgrounds.
The growth is not limited to women. Boys’ participants reached 291,874 for the 2023-24 school year, climbing 17.9 percent since 2018-19 and reaching levels not seen since the eighties. Part of this renaissance stems from households where a girl wrestler often leads her brothers to take up the sport.
If you have both boys and girls in your family, it’s kind of a one-stop shop. Everybody can go to the same practice.
For Maroulis, the personal impact of wrestling transcends statistics and medals.
The qualities that it instills in you and just the opportunities that you’ll get to have through wrestling, they’re so life-changing, and so I would love for every girl to experience that.
Currently tied with Adeline Gray for the most combined Olympic and world medals for a U.S. female wrestler with 10, Maroulis stands alone as the only U.S. female wrestler to earn three Olympic medals, having captured bronze in both Tokyo and Paris to complement her historic gold.
She will compete at 126 lbs (57 kg) at the World Championships in Croatia this September where she will have the opportunity to add to her already impressive medal collection.
I think it’s just going to continue to grow, as it should, because it’s amazing.
