Olympic Gold Medalist Hildebrandt Signs With RAF
The women’s division in RAF (Real American Freestyle) got a huge addition today as the organization announced the signing of 2024 Olympic gold medalist Sarah Hildebrandt. Hildebrandt has a coaching position on the women’s national team and was presumably retired; however, it appears that she will compete in some fashion for RAF.
Last year, Hildebrandt became only the fourth American woman to win a gold medal in freestyle wrestling. She did so with a 3-0 shutout of Cuban Yusneylis Guzman Lopez in the 50 kg weight class.
Hildebrandt has been a dominant force domestically at the two lightest weight classes for the United States for almost a decade. Between 2016 and 2024, the only time that Hildebrandt missed a World/Olympic team was went she suffered a gruesome arm injury during the 2017 World Team Trials.
Since Hildebrandt is not participating in Final X this year, we will have a representative other than her at 50 kg for the first time since 2019. Speaking of Final X, Hildebrandt has been perhaps the most dominating wrestler in the history of the event. She is 4-0 in series’ and did not surrender a single point in any of her eight individual matches. She outscored the competition 64-0 with 3 tech falls.
Hildebrandt is a two-time Olympic medalist and a four-time world medalist. She earned a bronze medal at the 2020 Olympics and has two silver and two bronze medals from the world championships.
Hildebrandt is now the second woman to sign with RAF - joining fellow Olympic medalist Kennedy Blades.
RAF’s inaugural event will take place on August 30th from Cleveland, Ohio. More information about tickets and an actual card will be found here as the information is released.
With Hildebrandt’s addition, the RAF roster now looks like this:
Ben Askren
Beau Bartlett
Kennedy Blades
Aaron Brooks
David Carr
Kyle Dake
Austin Gomez
Seth Gross
Wyatt Hendrickson
Trent Hidlay
Parker Keckeisen
Will Lewan
Matt Ramos
Nathan Tomasello
Zahid Valencia
Evan Wick
Real Woods
