The United States has won the most Olympic medals in wrestling of any other country, with 142 medals total. That breaks down to 57 gold, 45 silver and 40 bronze. Now, young Jewish wrestler Amit Elor is trying to add her own at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Here are 18 things to know about her!
1. Amit was born on Jan. 1, 2004 in Walnut Creek, California to a Jewish family.
2. Her parents both emigrated to the United States from Israel.
“My parents came to the U.S. in the 1980s from Israel to go to school. But the rest of my family is in Israel. So I would always go during the summers to visit my grandma. And whenever I was there I would wrestle in the local club, I also did some judo,” she told the Jerusalem Post in an interview.
3. Amit spoke only Hebrew until she was 2 years old.
“Now that I am older I am trying hard to learn it again. I took a Hebrew class to learn how to read and write,” she said in 2022.
4. Amit calls her mom Elana her “number one supporter.”
5. Amit is the youngest of six! She has three brothers and two sisters. Sadly, Amit’s father Yair passed away in 2022 and her older brother Oshry passed away in 2018. May their memories be a blessing.
6. Amit started wrestling at the age of 4. Two of her older siblings were wrestlers in high school, and her brother Orry came in fourth in the Greco-Roman Olympic trials in 2016.
Here’s what she looked like as a young wrestler:
7. She graduated from high school in 2022 and attends Diablo Valley College.
8. She has a Samoyed dog named Saorise!
9. Amit identifies as culturally Jewish.
“I feel like my family is culturally religious. Growing up my mom and I would always make challah on Shabbat. Hanukkah we would always make sufganiyot and light the candles. I love the cultural aspect of it,” she explained.
10. Both of her grandfathers were Holocaust survivors.
“They both had blond hair and blue eyes which we believed helped them survive the Holocaust by looking more like the German stereotype. That is where I get my features from,” she explained.
11. Please enjoy some of Amit’s core memories:
12. Some of her role models include Helen Maroulis and Tamyra Mensah-Stock. Maroulis was the first American female wrestler to win a gold medal at the Olympics and Mensah-Stock was the first African-American female wrestler to win an Olympic gold medal.
13. She is dating Brazilian martial artist Micael Galvão.
14. Amit is a back-to-back wrestling World Champion, taking home the gold medal in 2022 and 2023.
15. She has also won gold medals at the 2023 Pan American Championships, the U23 World Championships in 2022 and 2023, the Junior World Championships in 2021, 2022 and 2023 and the 2021 Cadet World Championships.
That is a lot of hardware.
16. At age 20, Amit will be the youngest female wrestler ever to represent the United States at the Olympics. Watch her qualify for the Olympics in this match.
17. And check her out modeling the Team USA Olympic singlet:
@amitelor1 Olympic team media day 🤩🤼♀️🫶 #photoshoot #wrestling #wrestlers #olympicteam #mediaday #olympics #singlets #interviews #paris2024 #summerolympics #olympian #media #pictureday #coloradosprings #olympiccityusa #teamusa #athletes #grappling #olympicdreams #fypage
18. Amit is favored to win gold in Paris!
“I do embrace that status [as a gold medal favorite],” Elor told NBC. “I always hope and expect for myself to win, and I want to do my very best, but I also know that anything can happen at the Olympics — we see that all the time.“
