Olympic wrestling champion Helen Maroulis can add another gold medal to her resume after competing in her first Brazilian jiu-jitsu competition.
The first American woman to capture an Olympic gold medal in wrestling transitioned to grappling with her debut at the IBJJF World Championships and she found instant success. In just her second match at the blue belt level after training for the past six weeks, Maroulis looked like a season professional after she hit a mounted guillotine choke for the victory.
Ultimately, Maroulis captured gold winning five matches in a row after first showing interest in jiu-jitsu while traveling to New York for a USA wrestling event and just deciding to take a stab at a new sport.
“This experience was amazing,” Maroulis told IBJJF after her victory. “I already love jiu-jitsu, I fell in love with it pretty instantly. Obviously there’s a lot of similarities to wrestling but I love everything that’s also different about it. I was just really nervous because I never even did one match in my life before so I just had no idea what to expect.
“It was a really great training camp at Unity, I’m so grateful for all the professors and coaches and teammates that helped there and just that I was able to go out here and compete today and I love competing. So this was just so fun for me.”
Maroulis is the most accomplished women’s wrestler in U.S. history after winning gold in 2016 and then capturing bronze medals in both 2020 and 2024.
While she hasn’t retired from wrestling, it appears Maroulis plans to continue to compete in Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitions moving forward after getting her first taste with another gold medal victory.
“I love competing but wrestling is very, very hard on the body,” Maroulis said. “Whereas with jiu-jitsu you see older people not even competing but just coming in and training all the time and I want that. It’s like therapy for me. It’s an outlet. I think really healthy for the mind, body, soul to have that with jiu-jitsu is really nice.”
