Kiki talks about the different kinds of wrestling, what it meant for her to become team leader for USA men’s Greco Roman wrestling—as a girl who never got to wrestle, and women’s wrestling today.
From Kiki: Women's Senior's Freestyle Wrestling is somewhat difficult to talk about to a general (read: non-wrestling fan) audience because of the complex structure of the pool of wrestlers, which comes from high school, college, and clubs. One of my goals is to create women's amateur wrestling trading cards, so fans and kids in general can get to know the greats, like Clarissa Chun (now coaching at Iowa) and Tamyra Mensah-Stock. A good reference for all American Wrestling is USA Wrestling. For example, the most recent team going to the most recent Pan-Am Games can be found by searching for "2022 USA Wrestling Pan-Am Games," but it's a list of the three teams, not just Senior Women's Freestyle. Or click here.
This makes me think we should interview some Women's Wrestling luminaries in our future podcast! For now, the point was to explain what a team leader is, but there's so much more to say about women wrestlers. For those interested, read Wrestle Like a Girl by Jamie Moffatt & Craig Sesker.