The Virginia High School League (VHSL) is under fire for diminishing the efforts and accomplishments of 266 girls wrestling athletes. Claiming that girls wrestling is still an “emerging sport”, the VHSL refused to award eligible athletes the medals they deserved at the zone qualifiers.
On Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, the VHSL stirred controversy amongst athletes, coaches, and families in the female wrestling division. Coaches of the four VHSL Girls Wrestling Zones were told that their athletes would not be receiving any kind of medals or trophies at the zone qualifiers, where athletes had the opportunity to qualify for the state championship.
This caused pushback from high schools in these zones, and a few quickly scrambled to try to resolve this issue. According to an Instagram account created in response to the situation, @holdvhslaccountable, the host school of Zone 2, Kellam High School, offered to purchase and distribute medals to all four zones, but the VHSL had forbidden them from handing out any form of recognition to the athletes.
Even the group ‘Virginia Challenge Wrestling’ offered to hand out blank medals, but this was also not allowed. “I feel as if it shows that [VHSL] couldn’t care less about sanctioning girls sports, and I feel like it destroys some athletes’ motivation and confidence to compete if they’re not getting any recognition or medals for competing,” said junior wrestler Codi Turner.
When questioned by high school teams and coaches about why they were allowed to do this, the VHSL responded saying that girls wrestling was still an “emerging sport”, meaning that participating athletes were not permitted to receive medals.
According to Section 54-1-1(1) of the VHSL handbook, in order for a sport to no longer be considered an “emerging sport”, it needs to be classified as an emerging sport for three years. Girls wrestling was classified as an emerging sport in the 2022-2023 school year, meaning that this school year, 2024-2025, is the third year of it being an emerging sport. Because of this, the VHSL Executive Committee will vote in May and decide whether girls wrestling will become an official sport. This process has occurred for all high school sports.
In Section 54-1-1(1) of the VHSL handbook, girls wrestling has been accounted for since the 2017-2018 school year, but despite rising participation in the sport, it still was not considered “emerging” until 2022-2023, which may have contributed to the confusion. “In my opinion, what VHSL is doing is extremely unfair to us, especially when we put just as much work or more [than boys wrestling],” said Turner.
Since girls wrestling has not yet been named an official sport, athletes compete in zone qualifiers rather than regional championships. This year, there were four zone qualifiers held for girls wrestling. These qualifiers were not sponsored by the region, which is why medals and trophies were not distributed. Awards are only distributed at region sponsored events according to Potomac Falls Athletic Director Nick Siano.
The top four finishers in each of the four zone qualifiers advanced to the state championship. Athletes were allowed to be awarded medals at the state championship because it was a VHSL sponsored event. So while athletes weren’t awarded at the zone qualifier, they were at the VHSL-sponsored state championship if they advanced to that point.
Participation in girls wrestling has increased each year, so it is likely that it will become an official sport after the committee votes in May. This means that girls wrestling will be part of a defined region, not a zone, allowing medals and trophies to be awarded to athletes.