‘In Illinois, Everyone Knew The Blades Sisters’: In Paris, Kennedy Blades Is Ready To Introduce Herself To The World

Growing up, Kennedy Blades knew she brought something special to the mat.

“I just wrestled different than other girls,” she said. “Both me and my sister (Korina) were always super offensive wrestlers. I feel like sometimes, girls are defensive. I was able to attack, take shots, take risks, because I had so many moves in my toolbox.”

Now 20, Blades’ attacking style still serves her well.

The grappler’s ascent has been swift. While still a junior in high school, she was runner-up at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Wrestling, falling to eventual Olympic champion Tamyra Mensah-Stock. Later that year, she took gold at  junior worlds; last spring, she won the U.S. Open.

Yet it was in April, at the U.S. trials in Pennsylvania, when the Chicagoland native made her loudest statement yet.

Competing in the highly competitive 76 kg. weight class, Blades turned in convincing win after convincing win, and capped the weekend off with a victory over reigning Olympic silver medalist and six-time world champion Adeline Gray in the final.

The performance earned Blades a spot in this summer’s Olympic Games Paris 2024, where she’ll aim to follow Helen Maroulis (2016) and Mensah-Stock (2021) as U.S. women to win a gold medal in the sport. It’s a goal Blades is already looking ahead to.

“I feel like there’s more than just making the team,” she said. “There’s just a feeling inside of me that I’m not satisfied. I’m very grateful, but I feel like it’s not finished yet.”

It’s a dream her family shares. Kennedy and Korina, who is 10 months younger, began wrestling at ages 7 and 6 in their hometown of Broadview, Illinois, just outside Chicago. Dad Saul Pulido rose early to take them to practices, making sure they got their pull-ups and push-ups in. Mom Cindy Ramos worked extra hours to help pay expenses, while Saul drove them to competitions around the country.

Kennedy’s breakthrough has been a long time coming.

In 2016, she became the first girl to win an Illinois Kids Wrestling Federation championship, one of many competitions in which she and Korina faced off against boys.

“We wouldn’t back down in any match against a guy,” Kennedy said. “We really trained so hard to be the best, whether it was a girls’ or boys’ division. We would absolutely destroy some of the guys, that’s for sure. Having that family foundation behind us really helped us surpass a lot of the girls and even the guys, because we were all in. We never said, ‘Oh, let’s skip practice.’ … 

“In Illinois, everyone knew the Blades sisters.”

Once Kennedy and Korina, who won a world junior bronze medal in 2021, enrolled in Wyoming Seminary in Kingston, Pennsylvania, for high school, they wrestled exclusively against other girls. The seminary, which began offering girls’ wrestling in 2017, is a leading training ground for the sport. In such a supportive atmosphere, her Olympic dreams grew.

“In 2021, when I was at trials, I really wanted to be the youngest champ ever, because I don’t know that there has ever been a 17-year-old that won gold in Olympic wrestling,” Kennedy said. “That was my goal at the time, but I lost to Tamyra. And I think (that loss) helped me grow as a person.”

Other challenges tested her mettle. At one age-group world championship, she contracted food poisoning but still ended on the podium.

“I learned I can dig deep, even through the worst outcomes,” she said. “I learned that I still have heart and I can still bring home a medal, no matter what.”

Blades and her team are leaving no stone unturned in their quest for gold in Paris. The wrestler, who studies business at Arizona State University, took the spring semester off to focus on preparing for Olympic trials. She plans to return following the Games.

“I definitely want to say in the business field, because I’ve been around it so much with my coach Izzy (Martinez),” she said. “He has his own business (the Izzy Style Wrestling in Chicago) and I’ve just learned so much watching him.”

USA Wrestling’s national women’s coach, Terry Steiner, along with Blades’ personal coaches, Martinez and Mark Perry, laid out a training regimen to ensure the wrestler peaks in Paris, where matches take place Aug. 5-11 at Champ-de-Mars Arena, a temporary structure built at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. The plan includes Olympic camps run by Steiner, where Blades will square off against other Team USA wrestlers in her weight bracket including Olympic trials qualifiers Tristan Kelly and Yelena Makoyed. 

“It’s pretty cool because all of us were competing at the trials, but when it comes to helping win medals at the Olympics, they’re coming out,” Blades said.

And while her U.S. teammates help her sharpen her skills for Paris, she in turn is helping them prepare for their upcoming competitions, including the U20 Pan American Championships set for July in Lima, Peru.

“At the end of the day, we’re all one team,” Blades said, “and we all just want to be the best wrestling country in the world.”

Blades also sets aside two days a week — usually Tuesdays and Thursdays — for off-mat training, including weightlifting. Her last big plan before the Olympics was competing at the Grand Prix event in Madrid in July, where she finished with bronze.

The Grand Prix, she said beforehand, was to help build strength going into the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Working on her mental game — “I can get into my own head sometimes,” Blades admits — has equal importance. For help, she turns to Kelly Amonte Hiller, the Northwestern women’s lacrosse coach whose teams have won eight NCAA championships. 

“Coach Kelly is my mentor,” she said. “We try to talk a couple of times a week, especially as it’s getting closer to the Games. She is definitely a huge factor (in my success). I believe she helped me win the Olympic trials, so I don’t want to derail that.”

Amonte Hiller, a member of the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, stresses the basics: Stay calm. Know that you’ve put the work in. Trust your training.

“I can just go in there and be excited and not worry about, ‘Oh, did I train hard enough?’” Blades said. “There are all of these aspects of wrestling, whether it’s talking to Coach Kelly on Zoom, or coach Steiner pushing me in the wrestling room, or me doing hard reps in the weight room. It’s all building my self-confidence. I feel like that’s a huge key going into Paris.”