Petersburg Mitkof Middle School eighth grader

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Continued Elor, “Of course, there are differences between then and now. There are hard moments, but you actually enjoy how difficult it is, and so we shouldn’t stray away from that and lose our purpose or lose our identity outside of the sport. We don’t want to accidentally make the sport our entire identity, either. So if have hobbies, do not stop doing them. Still try to prioritize some time with friends and family. Of course, we sacrifice a lot to be athletes, but we try to keep a balance.”

Freya Fenner, 13, had a chance to share mat time, and balance, with Elor.

“I like that it is a contact sport and it’s very competitive because I’ve always been competitive,” Fenner said. “I like to watch Amit on social media and stuff and I watch her wrestle and watch videos of her phone number list in the Olympics and all her other wrestling and I thought it’d just be good to come here and be coached by her.”

Haines High School freshman Makayla Henry, 14, and eighth grader Lylah Wray, 13, and her younger sister Hazel Wray, 10, accompanied volunteer coach Hannah Mason to Juneau for the camp.

“It’s an amazing opportunity coming from a small town like Haines,” Mason said. “Our program has been growing exponentially the past couple years. My husband is one of the coaches, the assistant coach on the high school team and the head coach for the middle schoolers, and we’ve seen a growing number of girls interested so it’s been an exciting new adventure for Haines and amazing opportunity that we have to come here and work with Amit.”

Henry’s older brother is a two-time state champion, winning in 2023 and 2024.

“I like the competitiveness … and being able to win is a good feeling,” Makayla Henry said. “And I really got into it because of my brother, too. He’s a two-time state champ so I looked up to him and that made me want to join it and get better. He set the bar high, so now I’m trying to accomplish that, too.”

Lylah Wray said she liked the sport’s physicality. “My entire life I’ve just done swimming and like non-physical sports so when I saw that people had control over the other person I just really liked that and my older brother, he’s a freshman, does it so that is what made me want to try it and it is incredible to learn from Amit,” she said.

Elor only wrestled her high school freshman season, winning the state championship at College Park High School in Pleasant Hill, California.

“That was special for me just because I grew up watching my older brother and sister wrestle in the state championships in California,” Elor said. “It was the first year that they had the California state championships, girls and boys, wrestling side by side. Normally girls wrestled in a separate, smaller venue so this was really special…But probably a moment that really stuck out for me, obviously, is the Olympic finals and just everything that followed after that. I think it’s more a bunch of little moments that accumulated the whole experience of the Olympics. It was surreal and it surpassed my expectations and I have memories to last a lifetime… First time in the village… first time seeing the legends like Simone Biles, LeBron James… like all these athletes, all in one place from all over the world and how the world just came together during the Olympics.”