“Why not, right?”

That’s the answer Amit Elor gave when asked why she wanted to wrestle in the Cadet and Junior World Championships this year. 

It’s more competition, more challenges, and more experience for the California native. At the age of 17, that’s exactly what Elor is looking for in advance of her second trip to the Cadet World Championships in Budapest. 

Here’s the thing: Elor’s domestic challenges and competition haven’t been plentiful this year. Her run through the Cadet and Junior brackets at this year’s World Team Trials in May are jaw-dropping.

All six of her matches in the 69-kilogram Cadet division ended by fall or technical superiority with times of — in order — :37, :49, :51, :20, :21, :24.

All six of her matches in the 68-kilogram Junior division also ended early with times of — in order — :42, :22, :32, 2:14, 1:30, 2:03.

Here’s the other thing: the Junior division took place a day before the Cadet division. Can you imagine what her younger and less seasoned opponents were thinking when they drew Elor in the bracket? The results speak for themselves: no one in the 17 and under bracket lasted more than a minute.

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Don’t worry if you haven’t seen much of Elor on a wrestling mat as of late. Her punishing and crushing style has only come out in spurts over the past couple of years. Her last competition was a win at the 2020 Klippan Lady Open. Prior to that, she earned a bronze medal at the 2019 Cadet Worlds in Sofia, Bulgaria. 

You’re just as likely to see her at a beach wrestling tournament or at a jiu jitsu tournament if you follow her career closely. Immediately following the Women’s Freestyle Cadet Worlds she flew to the Cadet Beach Worlds in Ukraine where, as you might expect, she won. 

“I think I really just like to try new things,” Elor said. “I’ve always loved the beach. My family is from Israel. I spent a lot of time at the beach training on sand. Beach wrestling was something that I was naturally excited about.”

Elor only wrestled one year of high school, too. She won the 150-pound division at the California state championships for College Park as a freshman with all falls, which you might have guessed if you knew her record was 44-0 with 44 pins. 

She thought about wrestling at Junior Nationals in 2019 but it was too close to the Cadet World so she opted out. That’s why you won’t see her name if you try to look her up in the Fargo record book. And it’s why you won’t see her compete at the California state tournament ever again. Elor’s sights are set on World-level titles in freestyle. She doesn’t want folkstyle wrestling to get in the way of her Olympic aspirations. 

“After my freshman year, I decided with my coach that I should be wrestling only freestyle just because there’s a big a difference between freestyle and folkstyle,” Elor said. “I just needed to develop some habits like takedown to turn and par terre wrestling that you don’t get from just wrestling folkstyle.”

Her coach is Valentin Kalika — the same coach who was on staff for the 2016 Olympics and who was in the corner for Helen Maroulis when she became the first gold medalist in U.S. history. Elor spends most of her time in Jersey City training full-time with Kalika while taking online classes and in-person classes through a community college. She’s ahead in school, which means she only has to take a couple classes during her senior year.

Wrestling will be her focus for the foreseeable future.

That’s good news for the United States as it continues to build a solid women’s wrestling team. Teenagers Kennedy Blades (68 kg) and Kylie Welker (76 kg) reached the finals of this year’s Olympic Trials. Elor would have competed but, get this, she was born a day too late. 

Elor’s birthday is January 1, 2004, which is one day after the cutoff to compete at the Olympic Trials. She will miss the Senior World Team Trials for the same reason.

That’s ok, though. The 17-year-old will get two opportunities to win age-level gold medals this year. Her bronze at the 2019 Cadet Worlds came when she was just 15. Now she’s one of the older girls in the Cadet bracket but will go back to being one of the younger girls in the Junior bracket. 

She has retribution on her mind, too. She lost a 3-1 semifinal match to Honoka Nakai of Japan. Elor can’t wait to get her hands on whoever Japan sends to Budapest. Actually, she can’t wait to get her hands on anyone that stands her way.

“I’ve been drilling a lot more leg shots and I’ve been having partners drill with me and moving similar to that opponent,” Elor said. “I’ve been learning how to open them up and put pressure and be adaptive when I wrestle. That works really well against girls from Japan because they’re used to wrestling from a distance. You have to be careful. You don’t want to come at them too fast or else they’ll shoot on you. We’ve been training hard for Japan.”

Elor has every intention of wrestling through the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The competition will be in her home state so the prospect of wrestling in California excites her. 

Prior to that, there’s another potential match-up that wrestling fans should get excited about: Blades vs. Elor. The match was scheduled to happen during the 2020 Who’s #1 event on FloWrestling but Elor had to drop out due to an injury. 

“I still have a long-term injury from that but I’ve learned how to handle it with physical therapy so I’m not 100 percent but it was bad a few months ago,” Elor said. “Hopefully after Worlds I can take care of myself more and get 100 percent. I don’t have enough time right now so it’s just physical therapy and being careful when I train.” 

The stage is set for Elor to bag a couple of medals at the upcoming age-level World Championships — hopefully gold. If she continues to perform like she has in 2021, we won’t be seeing much of her on the mat later this year. 

Watch the Cadet World Championships LIVE on FloWrestling, July 19-25.