How Sarah Hildebrandt got to the 50 kg gold medal wrestling match at 2024 Paris Olympics

It’s taken a while for this to happen. But just one more game separates Sarah Hildebrandt from her ultimate dream.

Hildebrandt, a native of Granger and a Penn High School alum, will face off in the women’s wrestling competition on Wednesday for a gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

Tuesday afternoon, Hildebrandt won the 50 kg (110 pound) semifinals over Mongolia’s Otgonjarga Dolgorjav, 5-0.

The gold medal match is scheduled to start at the Champ-de-Mars Arena in Paris, France, on Wednesday at around 2:00 p.m. (EDT). It’s the last match of a wrestling session that gets underway at 12:15 p.m. (EDT).

Hildebrandt will take on Vinesh Phogat of India, who in Tuesday’s opening round stunned No. 1 seed and reigning champion Yui Susaki of Japan, pulling off the biggest upset of the competition.

In the other 50-kilogram semifinal on Tuesday, Phogat triumphed against Yusneylis Guzman of Cuba, 5-0. Phogat is attempting to make history by being the first female Indian Olympian in any sport. In two wrestling matches in 2019, Phogat prevailed over Hildebrandt.

Dolgorjav was ranked No. 2, and 30-year-old Hildebrandt was ranked No. 6 going into the competition. Furthermore, Dolgorjav had triumphed over Hildebrandt in their two prior international encounters.

However, in the first thirty-three seconds, Hildebrandt established dominance by taking down Dolgorjav and sprinting in for a takedown.

Six seconds before the half, she made another takedown, aggressively taking down Dolgorjav exactly on the out-of-bounds line. Hildebrandt had her five-point edge, and Dolgorjav lost a point for trying to avoid the action.

As time ran out, the Mongolian wrestler tried a few desperate maneuvers. With 49 seconds left, Hildebrandt’s defense was flawless as he blocked a deep single leg shot and, with 15 seconds left, used a whizzer to avoid another shot.

Hildebrandt smiled as the final buzzer went off, pointing to her family who were clapping from the grandstand. The television commentators mentioned her Granger, Indiana, background and her influence at Penn on multiple occasions throughout the morning preliminary round and again during the semifinals.