Olympic champion wrestler Helen Maroulis has opened up about the discrimination and sexist treatment in wrestling. In a recent podcast, she shared her experiences throughout her groundbreaking career in women’s wrestling.
Maroulis began wrestling 27 years ago when only five states had sanctioned girls wrestling programs. From her earliest days competing, she encountered hostility that escalated as she improved.
“My first year when I was one and 30, it was, you know, oh wow, that’s so cute. Look at the girl. You know, she’s trying,” she recalled. “And then the following year when I started winning matches, all of a sudden it completely changed.”
The abuse from parents was particularly shocking. “I had parents yelling, ‘Get that dyke off the mat,'” Maroulis revealed. “Parents yelling at their sons to make sure they hurt me.” She was so young at the time that she didn’t even understand the slur being directed at her.
The discrimination extended far beyond youth tournaments. Maroulis detailed systematic inequality at the highest levels of the sport. “Women’s wrestling, it debuted at the Olympics in 2004, and up until 2003, they were giving out toasters and vacuum cleaners for women if they won the World Championships, but men got cash prizes,” she said.
Additionally, organizers gave out a “prettiest women’s wrestler award” with a sash and tiara at tournaments, “regardless of if you won or lost.”
Even in college, Maroulis faced institutional barriers. At her first university, which employed the only Olympic medalist from 2008, the men’s college coach abruptly declared that “the men need the practice mats and the women don’t.” The women’s team was forced to find alternative training locations, eventually relegated to drilling at a high school only after their team finished using the facilities.
The situation improved dramatically when Maroulis moved to Canada for school, where men’s and women’s programs practiced together as equals. “It wasn’t like pulling straws to try to get a guy to work with you,” she explained, contrasting it with her American experience where male training partners often resented wrestling women.
Physical altercations in the wrestling room highlighted the hostility. Maroulis described an incident where a male wrestler “just cocked back and punches me across the face” during a drill after she had escaped from him. In the next round, she retaliated by ramming him into a pole.
Despite these challenges, Maroulis maintains that wrestling gave her confidence and purpose. She found success partly because of parental support—her parents nearly made her quit until the International Olympic Committee announced women’s wrestling would be added to the Olympics.
Today, women’s wrestling has grown to include programs in 49 or 50 states, making it one of the fastest-growing sports. Maroulis’s perseverance through discrimination and her Olympic gold medal victory have helped pave the way for future generations of female wrestlers to compete with greater acceptance and equal treatment.
