Maroulis placed fifth in the 2011 World Championships in Istanbul, Turkey. Tony Rotundo photo. Continued from page 18
ence, because I hadn’t been training freestyle. I’d been wrestling folkstyle against the boys. I was more hesitant, wor- ried and scared. This wasn’t my turf,” said Maroulis. The next three years, Maroulis would try to figure out what her “turf” was. Was it Northern Michigan where she would grad- uate from Marquette (Mich.) Senior High School and train against women exclusively for the first time? Would it be at Missouri Baptist to work with past Olympic bronze medalist Randi Miller? Would it be training and attending college in another country with a longtime friend? “I know I’m not 16 (anymore) and watching people wrestling in the Olympics,” Maroulis said. “I wanted to take the opportuni- ty to make the team.” After a year at Missouri Baptist, Maroulis spent her second year of college at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, a school she found because of her longtime friendship with anoth- er rising star on the U.S. women’s circuit, Victoria Anthony. Anthony went to Simon Fraser immediately out of high school and like Maroulis, now trains full-time at the Olympic Training Center. “Vicky and I have been through a lot together,” said Maroulis. “Junior World Teams, school in another country together. I think I met her when I was in eighth or ninth grade. I never thought then we’d be on the same path, going the same places. It’s real- ly awesome.”
Maroulis loved her time at Simon Fraser, which included an
“I love the battle. I think to me, wrestling feels like an art and you go out there and you have all these tools and you want to put things together each match ... It’s never going to get old. It’s never going to get boring.”
- Helen Maroulis
individual WCWA National Championship, but at 19, it was time to put that Olympic goal first.
“Simon Fraser was more like a college team, just training dur- ing the college season,” explained Maroulis. “There wouldn’t be any guarantee (your teammates) would be committed during their offseason. I wanted to be around people doing the same thing and not have to train around a college season.” So Maroulis packed up and headed to Colorado Springs to train under Terry Steiner and Vladislav “Izzy” Izboinikov full-time, rather than in spurts at national team camps. “It’s been good,” said Maroulis of her time in the Springs. “Going to the room everyday, you realize it’s not camp. There Continued on page 20
19 USA Wrestler
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