Helen Maroulis, right, a product of the Sunkist Kids Wrestling Club, will be competing in the women’s freestyle 57kg event during the Paris Games. Olympic wrestling competition starts Tuesday. (Photo by Gregory Fisher/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Art Martori will be watching some of his Sunkist Kids Wrestling Club wrestlers compete in the Paris Olympics before he shuts down operations of the organization. (File photo by Emma Jeanson/Cronkite News)
PARIS – Sunkist Kids Wrestling Club, a powerhouse in the wrestling world, has produced talent that has won more than 120 world and Olympic medals. In February, the program’s owner announced he would close the organization’s doors following the 2024 Paris Olympics, ending a dominant USA wrestling run.
It’s particularly poignant during the final week of the Paris Games as wrestling competition begins Monday.
Five competitors for Team USA are representing Sunkist for the last time on the Olympic mat as the club’s last dance before founder Art Martori discontinues the team after the games.
“It’s time to turn around and put as much time as I possibly can (into my family),” Martori said. “It’s easy to decide that ‘I don’t need to do this anymore.’ It was a good run.”
The last wrestlers to represent Sunkist at the Games before the closure are Dominique Parrish (53kg), Helen Maroulis (57kg), Kayla Miracle (62kg) and Kennedy Blades (76kg) on the women’s side, and Payton Jacobson (87kg) on the men’s side. Four of the five are ranked among the top wrestlers in their weight class (Blades is second at 76kg) and have collected countless accolades worldwide.
Heading into this Olympics, the Martoris program is built up with gold, silver and bronze medals. Sunkist has secured eight bronze, nine silver and 12 gold medals, as well as 100 medals at the world championships. When ranked with countries, the club has the 17th most medals across both the Olympics and world championships, with the host country, France, sitting 20 behind them. The club wasn’t founded until 1976, yet the country medal data logs from 1896.
“Sunkist is the best wrestling club in the world,” ASU wrestling coach Zeke Jones said. “It’s better than most countries. (Director) Kim Martori has done such a good job. She’s built a hell of a club.”
The club has a direct pipeline of world-class athletes competing for ASU under Jones. Wrestlers such as Jones, Zahid Valencia and Cohlton Schultz have all wrestled and thrived for Martori’s club. However, the pipeline isn’t all that surprising, as Art Martori graduated from ASU in the 1960s.
Kim Martori, Art’s daughter, also led USA women’s wrestling in 2012. During her time leading Sunkist, she helped revolutionize women’s wrestling in the U.S. and has had a close-up view of the growth of the sport, which is the fastest-growing at the high school level. The number of high school girls competing in it has quintupled since 2013, and almost doubling from 2022 to 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.
Maroulis, arguably the best women’s wrestler in her country’s history, proved how much progress the sport has made in the USA when she became the first American woman to win gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
“I can’t even put it into words how much they’ve done for me and for women’s wrestling,” Maroulis said. “They’ve definitely cemented their legacy and will impact generations to come.”
Not all Sunkist athletes here are as experienced this summer as Maroulis. In fact, the other four wrestlers have never made the Olympics despite their many accolades. Miracle, who competed in trials back in 2016, is headed to Paris for her first Games at 28.
“They’ve done so much for my career,” Miracle said. “I wouldn’t be the wrestler and the person I am without them. In one of the breaks in the matches, I looked up and made eye contact with Kim, and that was just so special. I want to go out and represent them well in Paris.”
Blades, only 20, is also competing in her first Olympics.
“Sunkist is just an amazing foundation,” Blades said. “They signed me when I was 17 in 2021, and it’s an honor to represent them one last time. It’s an honor to represent the Martori family and I just know that they are proud of me.”
With all its 48-year history, these Olympics are an opportunity for the Martoris to ride off into the sunset after draping even more athletes with medals.
“We’re going to put some kids on the Olympic team with Sunkist, then win some medals in Paris,” Jones said. “Then they’ll call it a day.”