Sometimes losses can be career-changing. They can be enlightening and help put a wrestler on a different trajectory toward success. This is Olympic champion Sarah Hildebrandt’s greatest loss — one that helped her win gold in Paris. 

Sarah Hildebrandt turned off her phone and left her hotel room. It was 5 a.m., the morning after the most heartwrenching defeat of her wrestling career, and following a restless night, she hit the Tokyo streets for a run. 

None of her coaches knew her whereabouts or even if she’d wrestle later that evening in the Olympic bronze medal match. Her path through the city took her past work-bound locals — most of whom were likely unaware Hildebrandt’s dreams had been shattered less than 12 hours earlier. 

Hildebrandt was three minutes from the gold medal match. She led 7-0 at the break against China’s Yanan Sun. 

“I remember going back to the corner during the break and thinking, ‘I’m up 7-0. I’m three minutes away from the finals of the Olympics. Don’t mess up,’” Hildebrant said. “After that, I just wasn’t mentally in the match anymore.”

Sun chipped away at Hildebrandt’s lead and pulled out the victory with a last-second, four-point lateral-drop throw to claim a 10-7 win. Hildebrandt dashed to the locker room, where she spent the next two hours vomiting, screaming, and crying. 

“After the match, I was truly shellshocked,” she said. “I just remember saying to myself, ‘There’s no way this is real. There’s no way that just happened.’”

It was real. It did happen. And it turned out to be a career-changing moment that ultimately led Hildebrandt to an Olympic gold three years later in Paris. 

She wrestled back in Tokyo to capture a bronze medal. Maybe more valuable, though, was the lesson she learned from the semifinal defeat.  

“That Olympic semifinal changed my whole wrestling career,” she said. “Before the 2021 Olympics, I was this ultra-rigid, super disciplined person that was against feeling any emotions. For a long time, I had tried to suck all of the humanness out of myself for the sake of being good at wrestling.” 

The Olympic loss triggered changes in her approach to competition. 

“After losing in the semifinals in 2021, I was so worried that I had just forgotten how to wrestle,” she said.”Even after winning bronze, I didn’t trust myself.” 

Following the Olympics, Hildebrandt worked closely with her sports psychologist. They focused on building back trust in her abilities and dealing with her emotions in high-pressure situations. 

But despite all the work she was putting in, semifinal matches at world competitions were still “mental warfare” for her. Another lead got away from her in the 2022 World semifinals against Mongolia’s Otgonjargal Dolgorjav. A year later, she lost again to Dolgorjav in the World semis after beating her 10-0 a month earlier at a UWW Rankings Series event. 

“At this point, we were zeroed in to the fact that I needed to work through my mental block with semifinal matches,” she said. “It was the main focus of all of the work I was doing with my sports psychologist.”

Despite the semifinal setbacks, Hildebrandt was still racking up incredible accolades. She collected two more World medals and added an eighth Pan Am Championship to her resume. The Indiana native, who won two WCWA national titles for King University, has been competing on the Senior level since 2013. She’s made eight World and Olympic teams, won six World-level  medals and has been regarded as one of the world’s best wrestlers at 50 kilograms. 

But winning gold on the World stage was an unchecked box for Hildebrandt until 2024. 

“With each World Championship — even though I took losses — I could still feel myself getting better with what I was working on mentally,” she said. “I knew the (2024) Olympics would be the final test.”

After clinching a spot on her second Olympic team last April, Hildebrandt’s focus was fixated on the Olympic Games. She cruised to a 10-0 opening-round win against Algeria’s Ibtissem Doudou before a gritty 7-4 win over Ziqi Feng of China, setting up another semifinal match against Dolgorjav. 

“Before the semifinals, all those thoughts of self-doubt that I had in 2021 still came up.” Hildebrandt said. “Except, I didn’t judge my thoughts or worry about them this time. I just thought about how lucky I was to be able to experience such a wide range of emotions. The ups, the downs — that's what being human is all about.”

Hildebrandt defeated Dolgorjav 5-0 to clinch her spot in the finals, where she defeated Cuba’s Yusneylis Guzman 3-0 to become the fourth American woman to win a freestyle Olympic title. 

“Losing in the semifinals in Tokyo was the catalyst to the whole personal journey I’ve been on the past three years,” she said. “It’s hard to say exactly what would have happened if I had won that match (in 2021). I don't think I would be an Olympic champion today.” 

Perhaps more valuable than the gold she claimed in Paris were the lessons she learned on the journey to the top.  

“Before the games even started, I felt like I had already won because of how much all of those experiences had shaped me as a person," she said. “All the losses, failures, and setbacks gave me an avenue to become a more present and authentic version of myself.”