Alaska wrestlers take on Olympic and world champion at Juneau camp
Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2025 6:00 am
“My goal?” Amelia Fawcett, 18, asked after a session in the Juneau Girls Wrestling Clinic on Wednesday. “I want to be an Olympic champion, like Amit.”
The present and future of Alaska’s women’s wrestling program mingled on the mat this week with Amit Elor, 21, the 2024 Olympic and 2023 world championship gold medalist. The allure of training under arguably the country’s greatest female wrestler brought grapplers from across the state.
“This camp means everything,” Fawcett, a 2025 Colony High School graduate, said. “I wanted to come here so badly just to meet her. Like, she’s just pretty … incredible. She won worlds and Olympics at 20, and she’s the youngest to do it, and that’s amazing.”
Elor is an eight-time world champion (two Senior, two Under-23, three Under-20, one Cadet). She became the youngest Senior World Championship title holder at age 18 in 2022, in any style or gender, and repeated in 2023, both at 72 kilograms (159 pounds). In last year’s Olympics at Paris, she became the youngest U.S. wrestler, male or female, to phone number list win gold, earning the medal at 68 kilograms (150 pounds).
At the camp, Elor demonstrated the things she has become known for on the international stage.
“I can tell that everyone is super in love with wrestling here,” Elor said. “The energy feels different here, you know. I’m trying to understand the culture in Alaska. Everyone is really nice, but they also seem very calm, peaceful, so it’s just been very interesting for me to get to know everybody and visit another state. The girls are really great listeners. They’re trying super hard. I can tell a lot of them just started wrestling. I heard from coach here that women’s wrestling in Alaska has grown tremendously. So you can definitely tell that there’s a lot of new wrestlers, but they’re all really eager. I think there’s actually one or two girls here that yesterday was their first day wrestling. They decided to try out wrestling with this camp, and they are doing amazing. Many of the girls have come from some other sport and they are really getting the hang of wrestling.”
The present and future of Alaska’s women’s wrestling program mingled on the mat this week with Amit Elor, 21, the 2024 Olympic and 2023 world championship gold medalist. The allure of training under arguably the country’s greatest female wrestler brought grapplers from across the state.
“This camp means everything,” Fawcett, a 2025 Colony High School graduate, said. “I wanted to come here so badly just to meet her. Like, she’s just pretty … incredible. She won worlds and Olympics at 20, and she’s the youngest to do it, and that’s amazing.”
Elor is an eight-time world champion (two Senior, two Under-23, three Under-20, one Cadet). She became the youngest Senior World Championship title holder at age 18 in 2022, in any style or gender, and repeated in 2023, both at 72 kilograms (159 pounds). In last year’s Olympics at Paris, she became the youngest U.S. wrestler, male or female, to phone number list win gold, earning the medal at 68 kilograms (150 pounds).
At the camp, Elor demonstrated the things she has become known for on the international stage.
“I can tell that everyone is super in love with wrestling here,” Elor said. “The energy feels different here, you know. I’m trying to understand the culture in Alaska. Everyone is really nice, but they also seem very calm, peaceful, so it’s just been very interesting for me to get to know everybody and visit another state. The girls are really great listeners. They’re trying super hard. I can tell a lot of them just started wrestling. I heard from coach here that women’s wrestling in Alaska has grown tremendously. So you can definitely tell that there’s a lot of new wrestlers, but they’re all really eager. I think there’s actually one or two girls here that yesterday was their first day wrestling. They decided to try out wrestling with this camp, and they are doing amazing. Many of the girls have come from some other sport and they are really getting the hang of wrestling.”