2024 Winners:
2024 US Olympic Women’s Wrestling Team
Sarah Hildebrandt, Dominique Parrish, Helen Maroulis, Kayla Miracle,
Amit Elor, Kennedy Blades

The Afsoon Courage Award was created in 2016 by Wrestle Like A Girl to honor Afsoon Roshanzamir Johnston and to recognize and celebrate the quality of courage that she admires most - personal courage.

Today, athletes are too often captives to public opinion, or unable to speak out because of sport culture or policies limiting their voice and position when it means taking unpopular courses of action or offending powerful groups. The Afsoon Roshanzamir Johnston Courage Award honors athletes who have to use immense personal courage to be able to participate or compete in sports, even when participation could put them at great risk. The award celebrates athletes who choose to stand up for what is right, and who do what is right, rather than what is easy.

The award recognizes an athlete in the United States or abroad whose actions demonstrates the qualities of personal courage in the spirit of Afsoon Roshanzamir Johnston, as she left a life in Iran to join her family in the United States, where she becomes the first woman in America’s history to win a wrestling medal at the World Championships for the United States in 1989. 

Award nominations are accepted on an ongoing basis. Nominations received after August 15th of each year will be rolled over for consideration the following year.

Please review and consider the award criteria to determine whether the person you wish to nominate would be an appropriate recipient of the Afsoon Courage Award.