Wrestling is a mother-daughter affair for Amy, Kaydence Golding

Jan. 12—JAMESTOWN — Kaydence Golding might be small in stature but her dreams are anything but small.

"I want to be an Olympic champion," said Kaydence, a seventh grade female wrestler for Jamestown High School.

Based on her performance so far this year, the Jays' starting 106-pounder is well on her way to making the 2032 Olympic Team.

Kaydence is ranked second in the state standings at 106 pounds. The seventh-grade Olympic hopeful is currently 17-3 this year. Alicia Kenfack, a freshman out of Bismarck Legacy, is currently ranked No. 1 in the 106-pound weight class. Kaydence fell to Kenfack twice last weekend, to place her second at the Bismarck Rotary tournament.

Those losses are only motivating the Blue Jays' most prolific female wrestler.

"I train all year-round and right now I am mostly training for state but my goal for the end of the year is to make a world team," Kaydence said. "I train for probably three or four hours a day. I go to wrestling practice, I wrestle with the college girls, I lift, I run — it's a big accomplishment to make a world team, especially at such a young age and I want to do that."

Kaydence wouldn't be the first in her family to make a world wrestling team.

Her mother, Amy, the current head coach for the University of Jamestown women's wrestling team, wound up making her first world team when she was 16 years old.

"I got started wrestling in sixth grade," Amy said. "My athletic director was doing a class in our gym class and I was really interested in it.

"It was all boys except for me but I tried it and it was really fun," she said. "I asked to join the team and originally my mom was extremely against it because she didn't want me to get hurt but I am pretty strong-minded and I convinced her to let me try it out."

After her first season, Amy went on to join a wrestling club to hone her skills and refine her technique. Her time spent wrestling with the club only fueled her passion for the sport.

"I loved it," Amy said of wrestling. "I kept going and going and couldn't get enough of it. I had done a bunch of team sports before I started wrestling — I did softball, I did volleyball, I did soccer — but I would find myself getting annoyed with other people so I think wrestling being an individual sport really drew me to it."

She might have loved the sport but at the time, many didn't think she belonged on the mat.

"Girls wrestling was not a thing and people were really negative," Amy said. "I would get a lot of comments from parents and even some coaches about how girls didn't belong on the mat and how it wasn't fair. There were some really nasty comments but I was lucky enough to have two really supportive high school coaches."

Those comments eventually dissipated especially after Amy won New York's class and sectional titles twice.

"I was the first girl to go to the boys' states," Amy said. "Once that happened the comments kind of went away."

After her high school wrestling career wrapped up, Amy went on to wrestle collegiately and professionally. She was a 16-time USA National Champion, a WCWA College National Champion, a silver medalist at the US Open and USA World Team Trials and a Junior World bronze medalist. Golding is also a member of the New York State Section 2 Wrestling Hall of Fame. Before she came to Jamestown, she was also a professional MMA fighter.

"I think my mom was a big part of it," Kaydence said of why she got into wrestling. "I looked up to my mom a lot, a lot when I was younger and it was like, 'Oh, she's doing wrestling? That's so cool! I should do wrestling too!'

"Wrestling is a really fun sport," she said. "It pushes you. You have to be conditioned for anything. It pushes you past your limits every time. It's always pushing your body but it's also a mind game too. You have to be able to push your mind to push your body."

Amy was wrestling for the men's team at State University of New York College at Brockport, New York, when Kaydence was born.

"She's been around the sport basically since she was born," Amy said of her daughter. "We were teaching her wrestling moves when she was 3, 4 and 5. She was throwing our throwing dummy at 3 years old. She's got a lot of passion for the sport too. I think that is a big part of why she wants to do it."

While Amy no longer competes, she still takes the time to help Kaydence train and improve her skill set.

"I just need to keep supporting her," Amy said. "I teach her as much as I can. I try to get in at least once a week to do some workouts with just me and her. I try to build her confidence, correct some technique and have her hit a hard drill with me so she can get to the next level."

"My mom pushes me to be better. I want to say thank you to her for all that she has pushed me for and helped me become," Kaydence said.