United States' Helen Louise Maroulis reacts after defeating North Korea's Jong Myong Suk during the women's 53-kg freestyle wrestling competition at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Helen Maroulis on Chris Pratt helming her documentary and Beat The Streets
Helen Maroulis tests skills with Alexandra Hedrick at Final X New York/Beat the Streets. This transpires at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden on June 8th.
Helen Maroulis is the first US woman to capture an Olympic gold medal in wrestling and has made an astonishing fifteen world/ Olympic teams.
I spoke with Maroulis ahead of this amateur wrestling contest and excerpts from our chat are below.
Helen Maroulis
The documentary that Chris Pratt is helming on Helen Maroulis and her inspiring journey
“Yeah, so this documentary came about a couple of years ago. 2018 was when I first met the director Dylan (Mulick)…We just kind of talked about maybe following my journey through Tokyo. Covering the concussion, the injuries, and just kind of the human experience of being broken down and coming back to sports. It was an incredible experience.”
Helen Maroulis continued, “Just to have Religion of Sports, Chris Pratt, and Reserve Entertainment. (To have) these great people and companies be a part of it was so cool. I’m happy that I didn’t know the extent until after Tokyo. They kind of downplayed everything.Then after Tokyo when I met everyone I was like oh my gosh, this is a big project.”
Overcoming serious concussion issues to resume competing at a high-level in amateur wrestling
“Oh my gosh, I can’t even put into words how wonderful it feels to get to pursue wrestling and to pursue sport. I would say how I used to before the injuries but I actually think it’s even better now since then. I understand my body better and I’ve learned just healthy boundaries for myself. I’ve just gotten to know myself better. Especially how training needs to look like as I’m getting older. I just really love the way that I’m pursuing sport now. I love the people that I’m around and it’s just great.”
