Seth Duckworth
With the Olympics now officially wrapped up, and Texas adding another Olympic Gold Medal with Tamyra Mensah-Stock’s win this past week, I decided to take a look at where the state stands in the sport when it comes to recent gold medals.
I went back to 2000, where Brandon Slay won gold at 76 KG in Sydney, and pushed forward to 2021 and this is how it breaks down.
| Gold Medalist | Home State |
| Brandon Slay | Texas |
| Rulon Gardner | Wyoming |
| Cael Sanderson | Utah |
| Henry Cejudo | Arizona |
| Jordan Burroughs | New Jersey |
| Jake Varner | California |
| Kyle Snyder | Maryland |
| Helen Maroulis | Maryland |
| Tamyra Mensah-Stock | Texas |
| David Taylor | Ohio |
| Gable Steveson | Minnesota |
There are some caveats to include in this list. David Taylor was born in Wyoming but attended high school in Ohio, so he could reasonably be considered as from Wyoming, and Gable Steveson was born in and lived in Indiana up until about the seventh grade when he moved to Minnesota. Also, Henry Cejudo was born in California and moved to Arizona at a young age. But all three are more widely associated with their home states listed here, though there could be an argument made for their other states.
Here ends up being the by state numbers with Texas tying Maryland with two and all other states having one. If Cejudo was switched to California and Taylor to Wyoming, they would both have two as well.
| Texas | 2 |
| Maryland | 2 |
| Wyoming | 1 |
| Utah | 1 |
| Arizona | 1 |
| New Jersey | 1 |
| California | 1 |
| Ohio | 1 |
| Minnesota | 1 |
Ultimately, Texas stands tied at the top with two from whatever angle you look at it as Mensah-Stock and Slay are both born and bred Texans and Olympic Gold Medalists.
Texas is often maligned in the national conversations surrounding wrestling though Brandon Slay, Bo Nickal, Tamyra Mensah-Stock, and now AJ Ferrari are doing a lot to change that narrative. But at the most elite level of the sport with Olympic champions, Texas has been as good as any state in the country in the past 20 years.
