US wrestler Amit Elor has become 'young GOAT' of her sport, through tragedy and loss

MANHEIM, Pa. — It is not normal, the way that people in the women's wrestling community talk about Amit Elor, who is competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics. The 20-year-old is often described as a prodigy, sure. A wunderkind. A phenomenon. But in some corners of the sport, her ascent is talked about almost like it's a rare meteorological event − a 50-year comet, flashing across the sky.

Terry Steiner, who has been the head coach of the U.S. women's wrestling team since 2002, calls her "a generational talent" and doesn't think Team USA has ever had anyone like her, at least not since he's been around. Iowa women's wrestling coach Clarissa Chun describes her as "a young GOAT" who is destined for the Hall of Fame.

"I believe that," Chun said. "As long as she stays healthy."

Their reasons for optimism are clear. In each of the past two seasons, Elor has won under-20, under-23 and senior world championships, dominating opponents at each of the three age divisions she is eligible to enter. She has not lost an international match, in any age group, since 2019. And in the 37 matches since that loss, according to United World Wrestling statistics, she has outscored her opponents by a margin of 322-16.

"We don’t come around these athletes very often," Steiner said. "She's special."

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Even if she might not always feel that way.

"Sometimes I’m like, 'Why is everybody so interested in me?'" said Elor, who could become the youngest U.S. wrestler to win an Olympic gold medal. "I don’t know. I just feel after everything I’ve been through, I don’t feel any different."

Just because Elor has been successful on the mat doesn't mean her journey has been an easy one, however. In 2018, she mourned the death of her older brother Oshry, who was killed at his house during an attempted robbery. Then, in 2022, her father Yair died suddenly and unexpectedly, under heart-wrenching circumstances in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Monday, which is her first day of competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics, would've been his 67th birthday.

"It just happened to be that way," Elor said. "And I really hope that I can make the finals for him."

How Amit Elor got into wrestling

Elor started wrestling when she was 4 1/2 years old, hooked by the sport that her mother, Elana, would have preferred she avoid.

The youngest of six kids, Elor remembers tagging along to her older brother Orry's wrestling practices in the Bay Area and being immediately entranced. She begged and begged and begged her mother to let her give the sport a try.

Eventually, Elana Elor relented, but under one condition. She told her daughter that the wrestling club didn't have a program for kids her age, but she could have a one-on-one conversation with the head coach − who was "very intimidating," Elana said − and ask him for a chance.

So months before her 5th birthday, Elor marched into the coach's office. He obliged.

"She was doing I believe it was ballet or some sort of dancing (at the time)," her mother recalled. "I kept on trying to pull her out for tennis, for swimming, rhythmic gymnastics, cheerleading. ... It didn't help me."

Elor said she wasn't an especially confrontational or physical kid, though strength runs in her family. Her brothers all played high school football or wrestled, each of them an imposing figures with a large frame, like their father. Yair Elor immigrated from Israel to throw shot put for the track and field team at Boise State.

For Amit, wrestling as a child meant that, until she was 10, she competed only against boys. She recalls sometimes feeling isolated and unwanted. In some instances, boys would complain about having to wrestle her or make excuses about why they couldn't. In other cases, she said, they would get angry and almost take it out on her, getting unnecessarily physical and causing minor injuries on the mat.

Elor's mother, meanwhile, recalled driving around to different wrestling groups in the Bay Area, trying to find coaches that wouldn't treat Amit differently.

"When she started, they were OK, it was like, 'Oh, there’s a girl among the boys,'" Elana Elor said. "But once she started beating up the boys, there were a lot of coaches that didn’t like it. They would tell her, 'Go easy on the boys.'"

Elor's nomadic wrestling childhood exposed her to a wide variety of coaching styles, her mother said. She also spent several summers in Israel, where she was exposed to international techniques and training methods, and took up judo and jiu-jitsu at different points.

During one particularly intensive stretch, Elor said she was maintaining a regular wrestling training schedule while also incorporating separate jiu-jitsu sessions, every day.

"I was basically training all day long," she said. "It was wonderful."

It was around that time that Elor started to view the Olympics as a realistic opportunity.

Orry, who is 11 years older than Amit, had come close to making it to the Games. In 2016, he placed fourth at the U.S. Olympic trials in Greco-Roman wrestling. A few years later, after Amit won an under-15 Pan American title in Mexico, it became clear that she would also get her shot.

"I think people will look at her physically and say she’s a specimen − so strong for her age − and that’s part of it," said Steiner, the U.S. women's wrestling coach. "But technically, she’s very, very sound. Very hard to score on. ... She just does a lot of things well."

Amit Elor's mental toughness, through tragedy and grief

Elor said she's "never truly felt my age," which may be part of the reason why she won her first under-20 world title when she was just 17 and her first senior world championship at 18.

Elana Elor said there's also a mental toughness that has enabled her daughter to compartmentalize and continue competing through periods of tragedy and grief − including the unexpected deaths of two people who were closest to her.

Elor's mother said they were at a wrestling tournament in 2018 when they received a phone call that Amit's older brother Oshry had been shot in what police later described as a marijuana-related robbery attempt, in which a group of men purchasing marijuana from Oshry later attacked and shot him. The shooter was convicted of murder and sentenced in 2020 to life without parole. Amit attended large portions of the trial, her mother said.

Then, about two years later, Elor was confronted with tragedy again, this time with the sudden death of her father. Although some of the details remain unclear, even among members of the family, Amit's brother Orry said their father had isolated himself at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic due to a fear of catching the disease. He added that the family believes he had fallen victim to misinformation and conspiracy theories.

"He died because he isolated himself, and he did not seek medical (help)," Elana Elor said. "We don’t know exactly what happened, but that broke (Amit's) heart because he died alone."

Amit said her father's death was difficult for her to process in part because of how much he had supported her throughout her wrestling career, and the fact that he was gone by the time it took off. Yair Elor died in April 2022, and she won her first senior world title five months later.

"It was really hard to continue after that and just be OK, mentally," she said. "I think just knowing how much he believed in me and how much he supported me is what led me to continue and power through. Because I just wanted to make him proud."

How Amit Elor prepared for first Olympics

Elor called it "unbelieveable" that her first wave of Olympic matches will come on her late father's birthday.

And in a strange twist, those first matches could also wind up being her most difficult.

Elor usually competes in the 72-kilogram weight class, which is not among the reduced field of six weights that are contested at the Summer Games. As a result, she had to either decide to either move up to 76 kilograms or down to 68. She opted for the latter, but because she has not competed internationally at that weight, she will be unseeded in Paris − meaning she could encounter a top-ranked seed very early in the competition.

The requisite weight loss has been a challenge, Elor said, and there have been matches at this weight where she has won convincingly but just not felt quite like herself. For the past few months, Orry has been helping prepare her meals and manage her diet in hopes of keeping her strength up while losing the needed pounds.

"If she can manage the weight, I think she knows in the bottom of her heart that she’s going to win," Orry said. "And I think we know it, too."

That might seem like serious pressure for a 20-year-old and first-time Olympian, but for Elor, it is nothing new. Over the past few years, even as she has been heralded as the next big thing in women's wrestling, Elor said her mentality has remained the same.

In a sport where anything can happen, she said she often surprises herself with her own performances. At her first world championships, for instance she recalled being "shocked" every time the official raised her hand.

"I hope I can shock myself at the Olympics, too," she said.

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @Tom_Schad.