Kennedy Blades

Blades is from Chicago, Illinois. She and her younger sister, Korina, started taking Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes when she was four years old.{{Cite web|url=https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2023/04/07/the-blades-sisters-asu-sunkist-kids/|publisher=Cronkite News|title=Blades of glory: Wrestling sisters have big dreams, including Olympics|author=Madrigal, Ashley|date=April 7, 2023}} She later switched to wrestling at age seven, joining a small club in the area. As there were not many girls she could wrestle against, she often trained against boys. She won several championships competing against boys as a youth wrestler, including becoming the first female to win the IKWF Illinois state title, in 2016.{{Cite web|url=https://apnews.com/article/olympics-wrestling-kennedy-blades-b8e19b6d64d49f48949157d8f8186327|work=Associated Press News|title='Generational talent' Kennedy Blades, 20, seeks Olympic gold in women's wrestling|date=June 12, 2024|author=Brunt, Cliff}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.teamusa.com/profiles/kennedy-blades|publisher=Team USA|title=Kennedy Blades|date=April 18, 2024 }}

Blades and her sister, also a wrestler, attended Wyoming Seminary in Pennsylvania, the first American high school to have a girls wrestling program. She said that "because there weren't any women's high school wrestling teams in the nation, we had to travel around the world to get competition" – while in high school, she competed against wrestlers from countries including Japan, Russia, Estonia, Austria and Sweden. Blades won the U.S. Cadet national championship in 2018, and the U16 national championship, U17 national championship, and Junior national championship in 2019.

At age 17, Blades finished runner-up at the U.S. trials for the 2020 Summer Olympics, losing to Adeline Gray, who went on to win the Olympic silver medal. After she graduated from high school, she joined the wrestling club Sunkist Kids in Arizona and enrolled at Arizona State University. Blades was the gold medalist at the 2021 U20 world championship and later won silver at the 2023 U23 world championship. She also won gold at the 2023 Ibrahim Moustafa Tournament. In 2024, she defeated 2020 Olympic silver medalist Adeline Gray at the U.S. Olympic trials, thus qualifying for the 2024 Summer Olympics where she won the silver medal.{{Cite web|url=https://olympics.com/en/news/us-wrestler-kennedy-blades-the-goal-is-olympic-gold|website=Olympics.com|title=U.S. wrestler Kennedy Blades: 'The goal is Olympic gold' |date=May 17, 2024|author=Hendricks, Maggie}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.12news.com/article/sports/olympics/kennedy-blades-arizonan-wrestler-olympian-on-way-to-paris/75-ab98c65a-ec48-45de-a2fb-3788480c9665|publisher=KPNX|title=She had so much energy as a kid her parents put her in jiujitsu classes. Now this ASU student is going to the Olympics as a wrestler.|date=June 13, 2024|author=Pritchard, Emily}} Blades won the silver medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics, in the women's 76 kg weight class.{{Cite news |last=Khalatyan |first=Rafael |date=11 August 2024 |title=Wrestling: Two golds for Japan, one for Tazhudinov |url=https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1147720/paris-wrestle-kiyooka-kagami-tazhudinov |access-date=12 August 2024 |work=InsideTheGames.biz}}{{Cite web |title=Wrestling Results Book |url=https://olympics.com/OG2024/pdf/OG2024/WRE/OG2024_WRE_B99_WRE-------------------------------.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240811181048/https://olympics.com/OG2024/pdf/OG2024/WRE/OG2024_WRE_B99_WRE-------------------------------.pdf |archive-date=11 August 2024 |access-date=12 August 2024 |website=2024 Summer Olympics}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{UWW|blades-kennedy-alexis|Kennedy Alexis Blades}}
• {{IWD|8A00D241A06244EEB77BCFEA9F254FA9|Kennedy Alexis Blades}}
• {{Olympics.com|kennedy-alexis-blades|Kennedy Alexis Blades}}
• [https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/athlete/kennedy-alexis-blades_1955344 Kennedy Alexis Blades] at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics
• [https://www.themat.com/profiles/kennedy-blades Kennedy Blades] at USA Wrestling
• {{Team USA|new_id=kennedy-blades|name=Kennedy Blades}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blades, Kennedy}}

Category:2003 births

Category:Living people

Category:American female sport wrestlers

Category:Olympic wrestlers for the United States

Category:Martial artists from Chicago

Category:Wyoming Seminary alumni

Category:Arizona State University alumni

Category:Wrestlers at the 2024 Summer Olympics

Category:Medalists at the 2024 Summer Olympics

Category:Olympic silver medalists for the United States in wrestling

Category:21st-century American sportswomen