The wrestler in lipstick: Why Olympian Amit Elor prioritizes pre-match glam (and romance novels)

Yahoo

2 days ago

Amit Elor makes flourishing in a male-dominated sport look easy. As a 20-year-old competing at the Paris Olympics last year, she became the youngest American — male or female — to win a gold medal in wrestling. These days, the Gen Z-er can be found documenting her life on and off the mat on social media. Sometimes, that means lifting weights. Other times, it's wearing sheet masks.
'I feel feminine even when I'm wrestling,' Elor, 21, tells me during a conversation for Yahoo Life's OT Diaries. 'It's important for me to do things like paint my nails before every competition. I like to match the color of the rubber bands on my hair to my singlet or to my socks if I possibly can.'
This isn't something that was always important to her. She recalls being a tomboy when she was younger and refusing to wear dresses or skirts. 'It's probably part of growing up with the sport and wrestling only boys, that I felt like I couldn't show that side of me,' she says. 'So it's kind of been a process of feeling comfortable with my femininity and feeling comfortable expressing it and looking girly and wearing dresses and putting makeup [on].'
These days, applying lipstick and nail polish and having her mom help with braiding her hair are pre-competition rituals for Elor, who likes to bake and read romance novels in her downtime. Here's what she says about how these interests help her find balance as a young athlete.
Well, first and foremost, I'm making sure to have fun every single practice, even if it's super-intense and it's not fun. I think the environment really helps, and when your teammates are messing around, your coaches are positive, that helps too.
And then, of course, having things outside of the sport, like hobbies. I really love cooking and baking. I'm a huge foodie, so if I travel somewhere else and I know that this place is known for croissants or something like that, I'll go and give it a try. I love traveling too, and wrestling allows me to travel a lot. Recently, I also got into reading, and I've been on a romance streak, which has been great.
Everybody says balance is key, but balance is hard. You have to put in effort to be able to balance something, but I think that truly is the best. You see a lot with high school wrestlers when they start wrestling, [that] sometimes they're too extreme. They'll not eat for a few days or they'll eat just one thing. My goal is to still get to eat my favorite foods.
Unfortunately, when it is closer to the competition, I have to do that in moderation. And it's totally possible and it's actually the better choice, right, to be eating a lot throughout the day, fueling yourself and then putting the work out there on the mat. So obviously, I can't always eat exactly what I want and the amount I want. But I know it's a timing thing too, right? After the competition, it's really fun to go out to eat and really celebrate.
It gets a little bit complicated. … If somebody is going up in a weight class, the goal will be to gain muscle and strength. But sometimes [it's the opposite]. I've had this personal struggle that I'm eating well, I'm training hard, but I'm lifting so much that I'm actually gaining muscle, and it's making it harder to drop down a weight. So I've had strength coaches tell me, 'Decrease your reps, go heavy weight, low reps.' So there's these alterations we'll make when we do have to be a certain weight class. And sometimes it's flexible and we can [compete at] our natural weight. But other times it is complicated because one [weight class] is closed, or we're trying to make the strongest team and stuff like that.
I think the gym is my safe place, along with the wrestling mat. I enjoy lifting and working out just as much as I do wrestling. It's really fun.
I love active recovery. On a rest day or when I have time, I really enjoy walking. I can lose myself during a walk and just walk forever. One thing I was doing a lot before the Olympics, actually, was walking while reading, like an actual book. And I would just do this for one to two hours every day. It was helping me a lot. I would do it on a walking pad.
I did it once at this field outside my house, but I've gotten pretty good at relying on my peripheral vision.
I have at least one full rest day a week. I'm also generally trying to get better at listening to my body. I recently got really into ice baths. I really enjoy it. I love the feeling after, that kind of high you get from enduring all the cold. … The longest I've done is 10 minutes. But just doing five [minutes], I get the benefits of it. The hardest part is the first 30 seconds to one minute, because your body is adjusting and you're breathing really hard. But then after that, you just feel coolness and your body adjusts. It's actually really cool how your body is able to adjust and then suddenly you feel fine.
Wrestlers love the sauna. We go to the sauna probably almost every day for 15 to 20 minutes at least.
It's awesome. Seeing all the women that are getting more comfortable flexing, working out, lifting and becoming stronger versions of themselves, it's really inspiring. And it makes me feel a little bit more confident to put myself out there too.
Growing up, I was pretty lucky that I was never, never told to be a smaller version of myself. My parents never told me to cut weight. I always ate as much as I wanted and I always loved the feeling of being strong and looking strong. I think that's something that's really important for me to share with other girls, especially even within wrestling: that the smaller version of ourselves may not necessarily be the best version of ourselves. And we really need to pay attention to how we feel, and not just how we look. Life is worth living, and it's so, so fun doing all these things and getting to eat all these delicious things and all that.
I've always been a huge fan of peanut butter or almond butter. I love dipping apples in almond butter. That's delicious. I'm crazy about Greek yogurt. I can have that for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's the perfect snack with honey. I had a phase where I really liked protein oatmeal. So you blend oatmeal and protein powder with some almond milk and other things and you can microwave it or bake it or cook it, whatever. It's literally like a dessert. It's so delicious.
I'm huge on dark chocolate. I need to have dark chocolate with me all the time. Sometimes I have like half a bar to a bar of dark chocolate every single day. It makes me happy.
It's more of a ritual, you know. … That feeling when my hair is braided and I put my singlet on, nothing compares to it. It's that specific competition feeling. I'm ready to go.
It's only my mom [that does my hair] just because I'm so used to it and I trust her. If something works for me in competition, I like to replicate it. Sometimes I've been fixated on the same pair of shoes, and if I lose wearing a pair of shoes, I probably won't compete in those again. So I get a little superstitious about that stuff.
My strength coach gave me a very special bracelet as a gift. It had engraved on it something in Latin that meant 'I believe,' and it was just so meaningful to me. The night before I left for Paris, I spent like four or five hours looking all over my room and I couldn't find it. I had to leave for Paris without this bracelet that was so special to me, and I remember feeling really superstitious. I was like, I don't have the bracelet. How am I gonna perform? I'm probably not gonna win.
They're little, little feelings. But I know at the same time that they don't mean anything as far as competition. But here and there, if I am feeling a superstition, I'm able to go with the flow with it.
Always my mom.
Probably Friends or Futurama.
Ice cream. I can have ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
My biggest fear is regret. I want to make sure I live life to the fullest.
When people pick their nose or their ears, that gives me the ick.
Greek yogurt. And I'm a water girl. I can say that I drink water every day.
Probably food videos, like food reviews or 'what I eat in a day.' I just love it. And then I start looking at restaurants and then saving them. I'm a foodie.
ChapStick, I can't go [anywhere] without ChapStick.
I recently spent a month in Brazil, so I've been listening to an album of Brazilian funk music. I can't understand a lot of it. But the vibe gets me hyped up for a workout.
I don't follow that many wellness trends. Always stretching before you work out.
I'm probably the best baker my friends and family know.
I played saxophone when I was in middle school and I'm trying to relearn and get better at it.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.