US Olympic Wrestling Trials: Bloodied One-Eyed Helen Maroulis Continues History-Making Legacy

It looks like Helen Maroulis just won’t let injuries keep her down. The 2016 Olympic gold medalist ended last year with making it to the UWW’s year-end list thanks to her bronze win at the 2023 World Championships. This year too, she started strong with a gold at the PanAm Championships. And now, the US Olympic Team Trial saw her making history once again.

Winning two straight matches against Jacarra Winchester, Maroulis became the first female US wrestler in history to make it to three national Olympic teams. After being the first woman wrestler to win Olympic gold in the country’s history, Helen now adds to her long list of accolades, even at 32.

After Maroulis’ victory, wrestler Pat Mineo took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to highlight the collective jubilation that the entire country has been experiencing right now. “Queen Helen sweeps Jacarra to win the 57kg Olympic spot! She becomes the first US woman ever to qualify for 3 Olympic Games…“, notes Mineo’s post.

However, her road to Paris wasn’t an easy one. During her fierce match with Jacarra Winchester, Maroulis had the upper hand, but as the time was ticking, it looked like the tables could turn. Not only did the Olympic gold medalist start to bleed through her nose, but on top of that, seconds before the match could end, she had a problem with one of her eyes, but she kept going forward, ultimately getting the victory and making history once again. And what a story she just wrote!

Battling the “invisible injury”

In 2019, Maroulis took a brief leave from her wrestling career when she suffered a series of horrific concussions that nearly got her admitted to the psychiatric ward. “I would literally have these personality changes, or these dizzy bouts or vertigo…It was just really challenging to navigate all that“, recalled Maroulis about her troubled times. However, she proved her mental strength and slowly got back into her game over the years culminating with a bronze medal at the 2020 Olympics, and two more medals at both the 2022 and the 2023 World Championships. And now, as she looks to make her return to the world’s biggest sporting event, her fans can’t wait to see if Helen can recreate her glory moment from the 2016 Rio Olympics.

While Maroulis secured her berth to Paris, many of her veteran teammates were unable to share similarly lifting news. Six-time world champion and Olympic medalist Adeline Gray was beaten by Kennedy Blades broke fans’ hearts, while David Taylor’s loss to NLWC wrestler and the current NCAA champion Aaron Brooks sent shockwaves across the Bryce Jordan Center. The 2012 Olympic gold medalist Jordan Burroughs was also subdued by Jason Nolf, ending his chance to retire from the sport with another Olympic glory moment.