'I believe in myself.' Granger native Sarah Hildebrandt leans on family during Olympic run

Moments after Sarah Hildebrandt qualified for the U.S. Olympic Team last Saturday, the entire Hildebrandt family — mom, dad, siblings — engaged in a raucous group hug just off the center mat in State College, Pa.

For the second time, Sarah had won the women’s 50 Kg (110 pound) weight class at the U.S. Olympic Wrestling Trials and earned a spot on Team USA. And for the second time, her family played a monumental role in getting her there.

Winning the Trials means Hildebrandt will be wrestling in the Paris Olympics, which run July 26-Aug. 11.

More: How Granger native Sarah Hildebrandt punched her ticket to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris

“It’s a whole family affair,” Sarah would tell the media following her 10-0, 10-0 victory over Audrey Jimenez in the championship match at Penn State University.

And how true that is.

Sarah Hildebrandt's journey to the 2024 Paris Olympics

This time around, it was her younger brother who put his life on hold in order to help his sister get ready for the Trials. Drew Hildebrandt is a former state champion at Penn High School — he won the 120-pound weight class in 2016 — and a two-time All-American at Central Michigan University.

At Sarah’s request, Drew moved to Colorado a year ago to join his sister at the Olympic Training Center and show no mercy during workouts.

“He’s the absolute best,” Sarah Hildebrandt said. “He really offers the most amazing energy. He’s the greatest human being. And him being around just puts things in perspective.”

But Drew is the just the latest Hildebrandt to put Sarah through her paces. The story actually starts years ago with her parents, Chris and Nancy, who had to get used to the idea of their daughter wrestling on the boys team at Penn High School when she was a freshman. Penn coach Brad Harper wasn’t all that keen about the idea, either.

But the more Harper tried to get Sarah to quit, the more determined she became.

“When I first started wrestling, I wrestled on the all boys team, so my mom needed to come in when it was just me and my coach training,” recalls Sarah. “Just school rules, you know. So, my mom was there, but my coach (Harper) was too big for me to do the moves, so my mom would step in. And yeah, I would wrestle her, and she would leave with all these bruises. So, yes, it started with my mom.”

‘Why am I here?’

There were times, Sarah says, when she did wonder if it was worth it.

“It was hard. I remember sitting down with my dad and counting down the days until wrestling was over. And he said, ‘Why are you doing this? If you are sitting here counting down, why are you here?’”

“And I was like, ‘Why am I here?’ And then it was like a light switching on in my head. I’m like, ‘Alright I’m here, let’s be here.’ I stopped counting off the days till I’m done and stuck through it.”

At that point, Harper realized he wasn’t going to chase her off. And the Kingsman coach also started to see her potential.

“The next season, he (Harper) was in the wrestling room with me at 4 a.m.,” Hildebrandt recalls. “And he’s been with me for 20 years since.”

Harper, who has guided Hildebrandt since she began all this, was also beside her in State College last weekend.

Hildebrandt was the first girl in Indiana history to qualify for an individual semistate, and the only girl ever to win a match at the now-defunct state team wrestling finals.

A few years after that, she was a college national champion at King University in Tennessee.

And a few years after that, Hildebrandt was on the phone to her sister, Amy, looking for help as she prepared for the 2020 Olympic Trials, which ended up being pushed to 2021 due to COVID.

“My sister actually moved out to train with me before the Tokyo Olympics," Hildebrandt said. "Little did we know the world was going to shut down and she was going to be living with me full time, my training partner, in the garage.”

Moving on from tough loss in Tokyo

Hildebrandt ended up with a bronze medal in that Olympics. But as great as that was, Hildebrandt is still haunted by the memory of her Olympic semifinal, when she gave up what looked like a sure victory in the last 10 seconds.

“It was really hard coming back after Tokyo, I suffered a really rough loss in the semis,” Hildebrandt said. “I didn’t take enough time to process what happened, then immediately jumped into another world championships two months later.”

That didn’t go the way she wanted, either.

“It set back my healing process a whole year," Hildebrandt said. "So 2022 was just spent recovering, just getting back to a state where I wanted to be on a mat."

It took some time, but Hildebrandt realized she still has a burning desire — call it a need — to win a gold medal. So as she started ramping up her training for another Olympics, Sarah made another call back home.

“My brother actually finished his career at Penn State (he went there as a grad student) and I was like, ‘Hey, you want to come to Colorado?’” asked Sarah. “He agreed.”

Now, at age 30, Hildebrandt is changing some of her training methods, but not her style.

“Leading into Tokyo, I was hard headed, stubborn to a fault,” she said. “Wouldn’t listen to my body, just trained through walls, because I thought that’s what it took. I’ve taken a step back from that. It’s like, ‘Whoa. We put in the work the last 20 years, we can listen to our body, rest when we need to rest so we can push when we need to push.’ I think that will help a lot.”

More: How one night in June was 'like a fairytale' for Penn High School athletics

What awaits Sarah Hildebrandt in Paris ... 'I can take it to her'

To win a gold medal in Paris, Hildebrandt will likely have to get past Japan’s Yui Susaki, the defending World Champion. It’s a tall order. The Japanese have dominated international women’s wrestling in recent years.

“Yui Susaki, she’s the best wrestler on the planet. But with that said, I think I can take it to her,” says Hildebrandt. “I don’t think she has anything special. I think we give them (Japanese) too much credit when we step on the mat. I believe in myself.”

And for certain, the entire family believes in her, too.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: USA wrestler Sarah Hildebrandt headed to 2024 Paris Olympics