2024 Olympian Kennedy Blades signs with Iowa women’s wrestling team
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Once she is finished representing the United States Women’s Wrestling team in the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, Kennedy Blades will join the Iowa women’s wrestling team as arguably the most heralded recruit in the program’s short history.
The Iowa women’s wrestling team’s X account announced Tuesday that Blades has signed a national letter of intent with the Hawkeyes.
A native of Chicago, Blades is a three-time world medalist. She won gold in 2021 and a bronze in 2023. She also competed at the 2023 u23 world championships where she captured the silver medal.
Blades was also the first girl to win an Illinois state championship and took second at the 2020 US Olympic Trials at the age of 17.
Blades is representing Team USA at 76kg at the 2024 Olympics in Paris starting on August 10th.
At the Olympic trials in April, she defeated 2020 Olympic medalist Adeline Gray to secure her spot on Team USA.
The 20-year old Blades has spent the past two years training with the Sunkist Kids while attending classes at Arizona State University.
She started taking Brazilian jiu-jitsu when she was four-years old and then switched to wrestling at age seven.
There weren’t many girls she could wrestle against while growing up, so Blades often competed against boys, including becoming the first female to win an Illinois state title in 2016.
Hawkeyesports.com contributed to this article