Senior Level: Team USA’s Francis Ready for Second Run at Worlds (and also she has dogs)
Derek Levendusky, AWW Staff
Hugo and Koojay always cheer her up. No matter how hard her day is, the pit bull and the pit-boxer are her biggest fans, loaded with affection for their favorite person when she walks through the door. She got them from Rescue not long after she returned home from UWW Worlds in 2017.
2019 world teamer Victoria Francis went one-and-done in Paris two years ago. Flying home, she had time to think. On one hand, it was positive—she had gained invaluable experience and development. “I was a good experience to at least be like, ‘I’m here and I’m getting my foot on this stage for the first time’…it was that foot-in-the-door feel.”
On the other hand, there were disappointments. “Watching all my teammates and seeing the team score, and being like, ‘Man, we were so close!’ I think that year we were tied with Belarus, and we could have owned 2nd place with one more point if I had just made it one more match.”
International wrestling can be cruel. Blink, shift your weight the wrong way, miss a counter, and it can be over. Francis drew Gulmaral Yerkebayeva from Kazakhstan the first round in Paris in 2017 and lost a 10-3 decision. Then Yerkebayeva lost in the next round, eliminating Francis from repechage re-entry to the tournament.
“It was definitely frustrating, especially with all the lead-up up to Worlds,” says the Baltimore, MD resident, where she lives with her husband of two years, Jacob Weiss. “You go to all these tournaments and camps, you have all this funding behind you, your coaches behind you, then you’re on the mat for six minutes and then you’re done. It’s definitely a weird feeling.”
She didn’t stay down though. “Especially since I’ve adopted the process-growth mindset,” she explains, “I’ve learned to be like, ‘Yeah I didn’t win, but I improved so much this summer because I’ve had all these resources behind me. So I might not have performed and succeeded this year, but that’s building me into a better wrestler and a better person for the years to come.”
Francis remembers her feelings heading into Worlds that year. “It was definitely nerve-racking,” she says, coming off an injury at the time. “It was my first year on the team, and I didn’t even know if I was gonna make the team. Showing up at Worlds, I was like, ‘I don’t think I’m quite ready for this.’ I didn’t have a good mindset going in.”
Next time it would be different. 2019 is that next time as she recently made her second world team. After defeating US Open champ Alyvia Fiske at Final X, whom she lost to in the finals of the Open only a few months before, Francis got it done in Rutgers.
“My mindset has been, ‘I bet nobody in this country is doing what I’m doing,’” says Francis. “I’m giving it my all and no one is taking this from me.” She lives and trains in the Baltimore area with the Naval Academy, the University of Maryland, Blue Claw Wrestling Club and Woodlawn High School. Depending on where she is, the 2x world teamer could be wrestling a varsity boy, an RTC hammer, or one of the girls from the Maryland state team. Francis is used to wrestling the boys.
YOUTH WRESTLING
She started wrestling in 6th grade. The year before, her brother had joined the youth program. As she sat in the stands watching other girls wrestle, she knew that there was room for her in this sport. “I was never much of an athlete,” confesses the young woman originally from Litchfield, IL. “I knew I didn’t want to do soccer, basketball or softball. I didn’t really get along with those girls—I’ve always been kind of a tomboy, had brothers and male cousins, so I was like, ‘Maybe wrestling! I’ll try that.’ I didn’t even tell my parents I was going out until I brought home the papers to sign up. They were like, ‘Oh. Ok then! I guess you can wrestle!’”
So she started to wrestle the boys, a habit she continues in her training today. “Through middle school and high school,” explains Francis, “I was the only girl on the team except for this one season, another girl came out for part of it.”
There were other girls, however, that inspired her. “I still remember 12-year-old me,” she writes on Instagram, “having just finished my first season of wrestling, reading about Michaela Hutchison [now Michaela Schmitz, wife of McKendree head coach Sam Schmitz], becoming the first girl to win boys state. I knew from then on I could never use the excuse, ‘Because I’m a girl!’”
Was Francis good in those years? “Not against the guys,” she remembers. “But my dad started taking me to girls’ tournaments in 7th grade. That was definitely really important for my development because I was getting beat up by guys, especially because I was a heavier weight. Definitely did well at girls’ tournaments, not so well at guys’ tournaments.”
Living in southern Illinois at the time, she would travel with her father to the Chicago area, sometimes Wisconsin, Indiana, or Kansas, to wrestle against other girls in USGWA tournaments. When it was time for nationals, they were off to Michigan. After she won a USGWA national title, she began to dream. “I was like, ‘Alright, I’m best in the nation right now. Maybe I could be an Olympian one day!’”
It was all folkstyle at this point. It wasn’t until she went to college at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri that she was finally introduced to freestyle.
THE COLLEGE YEARS
It was during this time that a previous coach laid out a vision for her. “You have potential,” he told her. “You have to tell Toccara [Montgomery] that you want to do those extra tournaments—those postseason events like the US Open and Body Bar.’” Montgomery was the Lindenwood head coach at the time.
During her sophomore year, Francis ramped up her investment into the sport. “I wouldn’t ever say that I half-assed anything in my career, but it was then that I really gave it my all. That’s when I made the Junior world team and started picking up some good wins.”
At Lindenwood, she was a 4x All-American and 2x national champion. In 2014, she got a Junior world bronze. In 2016, she was the runner-up for the Olympic spot to Adeline Gray.
She also struggled with injury in 2016. She had back spasms in Sweden at the Lady Klippan Open, forcing her at the last minute to pull out of the tournament. Then it happened again a year later in Ukraine. “That was so scary,” she now admits. She was losing strength and feeling down her right leg and was diagnosed with a herniated disc. Surgery took her off the mat for seven months. She rehabbed just in time to compete at World Team Trials, where she battled through self-doubt about her health to gain new confidence and win the world team spot.
2018 USADA SANCTION, 2019 MINDSET
Francis was shocked in March of 2018 when she tested positive for a banned substance that resulted in a one-year sanction. The USADA’s investigation showed that the source of the positive test was that a supplemental product she’d been using didn’t list the prohibited substance on the Supplemental Facts label. Though this information favored her and provided the opportunity for a reduction in the otherwise applicable period of ineligibility, her sanction still lasted a year and ended on March 6, 2019.
The incident was a blow, but she stayed focused. Part of the restriction was that she couldn’t train with USA clubs or practices. “I took responsibility for my own training,” she said. Coming out of that chapter, her heart was set on the task at hand to make another world team. “My mindset for sure was like, ‘I just made it through hell this past year. Nobody is going to take this from me. I have earned this 100%. I’m training with guys. I’m getting my butt kicked daily and it’s made me stronger and better.’“
Her coaches Christian Flavin and Ashley Sword have inspired her return to the mat. “Christian and Ashley have had my back. Not that I would ever give up or give 80% effort, but they would never allow it. Anything I’ve needed, they’ve always had me.”
The U.S. Open was Francis’ first tournament back. After a 5-4 win over Rachel Watters in the semis, she lost a 5-4 battle to Alyvia Fiske in the finals, the same opponent she would beat at Final X.
“It was a good eye opener,” reflects Francis, “and also to get those nerves out. It gave me and my coaches a good set of things we needed to fix.”
World Team Trials was a different story. With Fiske sitting out to Final X by virtue of her win at the U.S. Open, Francis rolled through the competition to set up the rematch with Fiske at Rutgers. “World Team Trials was a totally different tournament,” says Francis. “I was in my positions that I want to be in and if I wasn’t in my positions I got the heck out of there.”
Francis squared off with Fiske on the big stage of Final X Rutgers, and finished the task of getting back on the world team. “That was a really cool experience just to be on the stage at Final X this year,” says Francis. “And still the same mindset. I was like, ‘I know I’ve lost to this girl before, but I’ve been through hell and back this year, and she’s not taking it from me. I’ve earned this and I’m gonna go get mine.’”
Francis came back for the second session of Final X, the night of the Yianni-Zain controversial match that became the headline in the wrestling community for the next two and a half months. “Not gonna lie,” she says with a chuckle, “I totally missed the incident. I think I was talking to somebody and looked away at just the right time.”
No one is going to look away September 14-22 as Team USA competes at UWW Worlds.
“Last time before Worlds I didn’t quite feel like I belonged,” says Francis, “but I remember how it affected my performance and now it’s like, even if I don’t feel like I quite belong or that I’m not quite ready, I can still go out and wrestle my best and maybe find an upset here or there. I only expect the best of myself.”
UWW Worlds will be held in the capital of Kazakhstan, the city of Nur-Sultan. This will be Francis’ first time in that country. 2019 WCWA Champion Dymond Guilford will accompany her as a training partner. When Francis comes home, hopefully with a medal, Koojay and Hugo will be waiting.