Fueled by Olympic stars like Helen Maroulis, women's wrestling experiencing surge in popularity in the U.S. 

At the U.S. Olympic Wrestling Trials in mid-April, young wrestlers figured out the right spots to stand in to get an autograph as competitors walked off the mat. The groups of mostly boys chanted the names of the athletes and held out shirts, hats and headgear with a Sharpie marker, hoping to get the signature from their favorites.

Women’s wrestling has been a part of the Olympics for just 20 years, but as these fans were young, they never lived in a world without female Olympic champions in wrestling. They chanted for women’s wrestlers just as they did for the men. Their fandom showed just how far the sport has come in two decades.

At the Olympic Games Athens 2004, four American women competed, and two won medals. Sara McMann won silver, while Patricia Miranda won bronze. Both McMann and Miranda learned the sport by wrestling boys.

McMann found out after she joined her high school’s wrestling team that she was the only girl wrestling in her entire state of North Carolina. But adding women’s wrestling to the Olympic program meant that young girls could watch television and see people who looked like them excelling at the highest level of sports.

2020 Olympian Kayla Miracle made the 2024 U.S. team with two wins over Macey Kilty. She was just eight years old when women’s wrestling became an Olympic sport. She first learned wrestling from her father when she was young, and he told her that women weren’t yet a part of the Olympics.

“Representation matters, right? Growing up, wanting to be an Olympic champion and not even knowing that women's wrestling wasn't even in the Olympics until [my father] told me. But then I got to be a roommate with Sarah Hildebrandt at Fargo, right? And I'm like, oh, shoot, there's women out there. Representation matters. You see it and you believe it, you can do it,” Miracle said after winning her spot on the team.

Women’s wrestling is surging in popularity

Now, women’s wrestling is exploding in popularity. The National Federation of High Schools says that girls wrestling has quintupled in participation since 2013, with more than 50,000 girls wrestling for their high school teams. Indiana recently became the 46th state to add girls wrestling to their sports.

At the collegiate level, women’s wrestling already has championships at Division II and Division III. The first Division I championship - the highest level - will be held in 2026. This makes women’s wrestling the fastest emerging sport to get to a championship in the history of the NCAA’s emerging sport program, which looks to identify opportunities for women in sports.

A major milestone in the growth of women’s wrestling in the U.S. came eight years ago when Helen Maroulis won the first American women’s gold at the Olympic Games Rio 2016. At the recent Olympic trials, she won a spot on the Paris 2024 team, making her the first American female wrestler to make it onto three Olympic teams.

“When I was growing up, there were no female Olympics champions, and I struggled a lot to believe that it was even something I'd be able to do, because I felt like I didn't relate to the male Olympic champions. And then God really showed me that, you can win just by being yourself,” Maroulis said after her win.

Maroulis is one of the champions young wrestling fans can look up to, and she obliged the autograph seekers as they chanted, “Helen! Helen!” But she also gave credit to the girls who aren’t afraid to learn a different sport, and the families who support them.

“Just the girls showing up, the girls giving it a try, the brothers that are rolling with their sisters in the basement or in the family room, and then just the parents that are willing to let their daughters go out. And then I think they get to see the fruit of that labor and how much value it brings, that confidence and skills that it will give you just for life. The growth is huge, right? And I think it will keep growing,” she said.

The girls trying the sport now will find that women’s wrestling has more exposure, investment and support than McMann and Miranda did when they were the first American medalists, or even Maroulis when she became the first to win gold. With the work they have put in, the sport is poised to continue growing.