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Former ALA wrestler Sage Mortimer (center-left) poses for a photo at a party celebrating her winning a gold medal at the 2024 U23 World Wrestling Championships.

Brian E. Preece, Herald correspondent

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ALA wrestler Sage Mortimer pins Maple Mountain wrestler Donna Wright in the finals of the 115-pound weight class during the 5A/3A/2A/1A state girls wrestling tournament at Mountain View High School in Orem on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021. 

Jared Lloyd, Daily Herald

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Former ALA wrestler Sage Mortimer (right) poses for a photo at a party celebrating her winning a gold medal at the 2024 U23 World Wrestling Championships.

Brian E. Preece, Herald correspondent

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Sage Mortimer returned home to Utah County after she climbed to the top of the podium at the World Wrestling Championships for women 23-and-under in the 50-kilogram weight class.

Her club coach Craig LaMont hosted a well-deserved celebration event at his home in Mapleton, where hundreds of people attended to meet Mortimer after her gold medal performance in Tirana, Albania last month.

“This is so awesome,” Mortimer said about the party in her honor. “I’m so grateful for all these people supporting me and showing up for this.”

Plenty of young fans, girls and boys alike, attended to get photos with her and see her gold medal up close.

Mortimer is a true role model for all girl wrestlers in the Beehive State. She grew up wrestling against the boys and actually placed in the state tournament her freshman year when there was no girls wrestling. Then during her senior year, the Utah High School Activities Association sanctioned girls wrestling and she easily won her weight class.

Since Mortimer graduated in 2021, over 1,300 girls competed in the state last season and Mortimer is thrilled to see the growth of the sport.

“I think it is exciting how much girls wrestling is growing,” Mortimer said.

The former American Leadership Academy wrestling star would still like to see the rules for high school change from collegiate or folkstyle, which boys and men use in high school and college wrestling, to freestyle which is used for the women in international competition as well as at the college level.

“I think it would be a game changer if we chose to make high school wrestling freestyle instead of folkstyle because it would make the transition to college a lot easier and we would see substantially more Utah girls on the world stage,” Mortimer said.

It should be noted that Brooklyn Hays, who prepped at Pleasant Grove High School and is currently honing her skills at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, took fifth in the same event at 68 kilograms. This means that in the ten weight classes for this particular competition, two of competitors for the USA are from right here in Utah County.

Mortimer, who has two years of college eligibility remaining, is competing at Grand Valley State in Allendale, Michigan. Winning the world championships was one of her big goals but she has other large goals yet to achieve including winning a collegiate title and then making the Olympic team and winning the gold there. She placed second last year in the college wrestling championships and was second alternate for the 2024 Olympic team.

Mortimer also said there are two important mentors for her in female wrestling and both have Utah County roots: Hailey Corona, who prepped at Maple Mountain and is now the head girls wrestling coach at Wasatch High School, and Marlynne Deede, who finished her college career at Iowa winning a national title and is actually one of the assistant coaches at Grand Valley State University.

“I would say Hailey Corona is definitely my first mentor,” Mortimer said. “She’s one of the reasons I decided to start wrestling and she’s one of my best friends to this day and she is always helping me with wrestling and life.”

As for Deede, Mortimer said, “I look up to her and try to be as amazing of a human and wrestler as she is every day.”

With regards to the World Championships themselves, Mortimer had an amazing tournament and pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the tournament when she pinned Japan’s Umi Moto in the semifinals.

Moto was winning the match 8-0 and was about to win by technical fall. But as she was working for her final back exposure on Mortimer, she made a critical mistake. Mortimer took advantage and caught Moto on her back to secure the fall.

“I caught her arm (when I was rolling through),” Mortimer said. “It was crazy how it happened. Everything had to happen so quickly.”

After the thrilling match, Mortimer was emotional.

“I was so proud of myself, I was so overwhelmed I started crying on the mat,” said Mortimer.

Then Mortimer had to deal with Natalia Pudova of the host country in the championship final, but she was more than up for the challenge as she defeated the Albanian 7-5 to claim the gold medal.