Energetic Tamyra Mensah Stock Ready For Run At Another World Wrestling Title

Tamyra Mensah Stock celebrates after defeating Alla Cherkasova (Team Ukraine) during their women's freestyle 68 kg. semifinal bout at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 on Aug. 2, 2021 in Chiba, Japan.

One recent day before hopping a plane to Paris to train with the U.S. world team, Olympic wrestling champion Tamyra Mensah Stock had just finished a workout under the watchful eye of Mason Walters, a U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee strength and conditioning coach.
“We don’t focus on doing maximum reps,” Mensah Stock says, just slightly out of breath. “(Walters) focuses on functional positions for wrestling, like front squats, for instance. A lot of the loads that we deal with in wrestling have to do with our chest, almost like a front squat, so he goes like, ‘5-4-3-2-1,’ to make sure we have a long countdown, to try to get us stronger there.”
Mensah Stock is ebullient and happy to talk, even in the middle of a 20-minute cooldown. The Chicago native has captivated wrestling fans with her infectious personality since her days as a collegiate champion at Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, Texas. Her joyful interviews after winning an Olympic gold medal last summer in Tokyo made her a popular Olympian.
“She is always full of energy, she is always positive,” said her coach, Terry Steiner. “Everyone likes to be around her, even our competitors. She just has something special about her and brings great energy to the group.”
Mensah Stock, 29, is the No. 2 seed in the women’s freestyle 68 kg, weight class at the 2022 Senior World Wrestling Championships, which take place Sept. 10-18 in Belgrade, Serbia. Mensah Stock’s competition is Sept. 14 and 15.
Mensah Stock is often labeled “dominant,” a term she has yet to fully embrace.
“I know that I am perceived as dominant, but at the same time, I feel like I can falter,” Mensah Stock said. “I’m like, ‘Oh man, I can be way better than this.’ But when I look back at the (video) from the Olympics, I’m blown away by how dominant I was. How do I forget that? But I still like just trying to be humble. I know I have room to grow.”
If Mensah Stock ever grows overconfident, her coach is on hand to pull her back down.
“Following the Olympics, we went to the world championships and I think she thought they were going to hand her the gold medal and she got upset in the semifinal,” Steiner said. “And that’s definitely not sitting very well with her. I think it is probably the reason she’s back competing. … It really gives her the edge. She just has something to prove here.”

(L-R) Tamyra Mensah Stock competes against Alla Cherkasova (Team Ukraine) during the women's freestyle 68 kg. semifinal at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 on Aug. 2, 2021 in Chiba, Japan.

That hunger is what makes Mensah Stock so lethal on the mat. There is a stark contrast between the affable woman showing off her singing and dancing chops on Instagram, and the fierce competitor who uses her superior speed to stun opponents with lightning-quick takedowns.
“When I first started wrestling, I always had a smile on my face during the matches,” she said. “I’m still having fun in my head, but I have to flip the switch and go, ‘All right, this girl is not your friend right now. She is your enemy. She wants to take you down and you are going to show how dominant you are.’ “
After becoming the first Black U.S. woman wrestler to win an Olympic gold medal, Mensah Stock charmed the public with a series of appearances on talk shows. Viewers warmed to her quirky humor and engaging personality, as well as her devotion to family: mom Shonda Wells, twin sister Tarkvia Mensah and her husband of six years, former wrestler Jacob Stock. Mensah Stock’s father, Prince Mensah, died in a car crash in 2009 while driving home from one of her competitions.
“God blessed me with an incredible support group,” she said. “We are in this little weekly group chat as a family, just trying to keep each other up to date on what is going on in our everyday lives. My husband is right there, as well as my dogs (Shih Tzu terriers Otis and Lula), and just knowing they will always love me no matter how I perform gives me the courage to keep going and going.”
A recurring topic of Mensah Stock’s post-Olympic interviews was her desire to use her prize money to buy her mom a food truck so that Shonda could turn her off-and-on barbecue business into a full-time, profitable endeavor.
When Cameron Davies, the owner of San Antonio-based mobile food construction company Cruising Kitchens, read about her plan, he gifted Shonda a $250,000 custom-built truck.
While the food truck business is still in development, a world title in Belgrade is within reach.
“If I do everything the right way – stay low, stay offensive, wrestle smart – I will ultimately come out on top, and I just have to remember that,” said Mensah Stock, who won a world gold medal in 2019, and bronze medals in 2021 and 2018. “I also want to help my teammates. We have four new world team members. Going into Belgrade, I definitely am excited to be a leader and show them, ‘Hey, guess what? Wrestle your way.’”
Steiner, who predicts Mensah Stock will make a great coach someday, praises her ability to inspire and motivate.
“She is definitely a great talent and a great, great human being,” Steiner said. “We couldn’t have a better leader, a better spokesperson for our team.”