As the final seconds ticked away on her gold-medal victory Wednesday night, Sarah Hildebrandt started a victory lap that was years in the making.
Her 3-0 victory over Cuba's Yusneylis Guzman Lopez in the 50-kilogram weight class secured, the former King University wrestler began circling the Champ-de-Mars Arena mat with an amazed expression, then shouted into the crowd. "I think I said, 'I just won the Olympics,'" she later recalled, laughing about her uncertainty over the emotional moment. "I don't know, gibberish comes."
Hildebrandt pulled an American flag behind her neck like a cape and embraced her coach, Izzy Izboinikov, in a body-lock worthy hug, wrapping the flag around them. But the biggest hugs were saved for the "Hilde Squad," as Sarah described them — the kinetically charged, American-flag waving crowd of friends and family in the northeast stands.
There were her parents, Chris and Nancy. Her older brother Cory, who introduced Sarah to the sport; her sister Amy, Sarah's training partner for the Tokyo Games; and her youngest brother, Drew, who helped her train for Paris. They were joined by friends, former coaches and family members who rushed to the front of the stands, years of anticipation coming out in a group grapple. Each, in some way, had played a part in this moment and understood its weight.
"It's everybody who's been with me from the very beginning, believing in this all along," said Hildebrandt, who struggled to articulate how this long-awaited moment felt. "It's like I've dreamed of this moment for so long, and then I feel like my mind and body are just like not computing everything."
Hildebrandt's journey has captivated people in and out of the wrestling world not just for what she's accomplished, but because of what was needed to accomplish it.
Women's wrestling was a fresh Olympics sport when she was first introduced to it in middle school, debuting at the 2004 Athens Games. Hildebrandt developed her skills by wrestling with the Penn High School boys wrestling team in Mishawaka, Indiana, because there were no girls programs and Sarah knew of only two other girls wrestlers in her home state.
But in college, she found her community.
King, a Division II school in Bristol, Tennessee, with more than 1,000 students, had started a women's wrestling program just a year before Hildebrandt arrived in 2011. Yet despite being so new, there were already 28 other young women just like herself. They traveled to Appalachia from every corner of the U.S. — Florida, New York, California, Texas and Kansas — for the chance to wrestle.
In that group of trailblazers, Hildebrandt found a path to greatness.
Hildebrandt (left) reacts following her victory against Otgonjargal Dolgorjav of Mongolia.
During Hildebrandt's junior year, the Tornado wrestlers won their first Women's Collegiate Wrestling Association national championship and first National Wrestling Coaches Association National Duals championship while Hildebrandt went 16-0 and yielded just a single point to an opponent all season. She capped her King career with a 18-0 record as a senior, helping the school repeat as WCWA champion and NWCA National Duals champion.
That was the launching pad that took Hildebrandt to two bronze and two silver-medal finishes in the World Wrestling Championships and a bronze medal at the Tokyo Games.
"It was so cool wrestling at King," Hildebrandt said. "It was just a room filled with rock stars, a group of people who aren't just there to wrestle for college. They had Olympic aspirations. And obviously that was mine, as well, and that helped kind of create that environment for me and really reach for the stars there."
The only thing missing from Hildebrandt's legacy was a gold medal — an achievement that was within reach in Tokyo before a heartbreaking finish in the semifinal. She needed just 45 minutes of real time to defeat Turkey's Evin Demirhan and Bulgaria's Miglena Selishka by technical superiority — wrestling's equivalent of a mercy rule — and was up 7-0 in the semifinal over China's Yanan Sun. But Sun stormed back and claimed the match in the final five seconds, sending Hildebrandt to the bronze-medal match.
But that moment wouldn't be repeated Wednesday.
As Hildebrandt waited in a Champ-de-Mars Arena tunnel to be introduced, she bounced on her feet and gave a broad, relaxed smile of joy while Guzman Lopez — competing in the final because the original finalist, Vinesh Phogat of India, had been disqualified that morning for failing to make weight — stood mostly still, looking forward, mouth flat.
As their match began, Hildebrandt managed her moves patiently. She avoided aggressive maneuvers that could open opportunities for the defensive-minded Guzman Lopez, and patiently waited to take her shots. A takedown in the first period gave her an early 2-0 advantage. A penalty on Guzman Lopez for inactivity added another point in the second period.
As the final couple seconds ticked off, Hildebrandt turned from Guzman Lopez and took relaxed, confident steps toward the edge of the ring, her gold-medal moment finally secure. After circling the mat, taking in the moment, she raised her arms to the sky and looked up, releasing a victorious roar.
And as Hildebrandt cried out in victory, celebrations from her supporters erupted, from the stands of Champ-de-Mars all the way to Bristol, Tennessee, where the King coaches toasted the most successful of their original pioneers.
"It's just hard to put into words how happy and excited I am for Sarah and her family," said Hildebrandt's coach at King, Jason Moorman, who still heads the program. "She's reached the pinnacle of her sport, and it's something that everyone dreams of when they get started, and she's done it. I'm just ecstatic for her."
Hildebrandt hesitated when asked the inevitable question of a pioneer whose reached that pinnacle: What comes next? She's now 30 with two Olympic medals, and she left open the possibility of coming back for more.
But she's also looking forward to the time — whenever that day comes — when she can enjoy grappling with a new challenge.
"I will say I'm excited to find out who Sarah is outside of the wrestling world," she said. "I do want to learn and grow outside of this crazy world which has given me so much‚ and I feel like it allowed me to take on the next step in life — and see who Sarah is outside of it all."
Hildebrandt celebrated her gold medal win with her family and friends, who played a pivotal role in her journey. The group, known as the "Hilde Squad," gathered at the front of the stands, sharing the emotional weight of her triumph.
