Amit Elor thought she was just dealing with a bad illness. But she soon discovered it was something much more serious.

The Olympic champion has been hospitalized with pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart, forcing her to withdraw from the U23 World Championships later this month. Worse still, her status for the Senior World Championships remains uncertain.

For Elor, the setback comes after months of pushing her body to its limits. She had returned to wrestling after giving birth to her son, Aryeh, and was chasing another world title. Now, the 22-year-old is being forced to step away from the mat and focus on something far more important: her health. Elor opened up about the ordeal on Instagram, choosing to share the difficult details with fans rather than hide behind her Olympic champion status.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger 😔💪,” she wrote before explaining why she felt compelled to speak publicly about what had happened. After spending three weeks filming a reality TV show in Canada, Elor returned home feeling sick. Toward the end of August, she woke up with what she described as “unbearable chest and neck pain” and ended up in the hospital.

Doctors found elevated troponin levels, which can indicate heart muscle injury. Yet after undergoing several tests, including a stress test, Elor said she was told there was nothing wrong with her heart and that she could continue training. So she did.

“The pain continued, and I was taking ibuprofen around the clock just to manage it,” Elor revealed. But the situation became increasingly difficult to ignore.

During the first week of September, she developed extremely high fevers that reached 104.4°F even while taking ibuprofen. Still, she travelled to the Olympic Training Center for World Team Camp.

That decision ultimately led to the breakthrough in her diagnosis. A cardiac MRI showed that Elor had pericarditis. Doctors prescribed anti-inflammatory medication and instructed her to stop exercising. However, the fevers continued, and Elor soon found herself back in the hospital.

“Last week, I spent most of the week in the hospital undergoing 50+ blood tests and an extensive workup,” she wrote. The tests have yet to identify a definitive cause. Doctors currently believe a viral illness triggered the inflammation.

For an athlete accustomed to solving problems on the wrestling mat, not having a clear answer has made the situation even more frustrating.

The timing of Elor’s setback makes it particularly difficult. Only months earlier, she had returned to competition after giving birth to Aryeh in January. Her comeback was remarkable. After a year away from competition, Elor dominated the 72kg bracket at the 2026 Senior World Team Trials Challenge Tournament, winning three consecutive matches by bonus points.

She then continued that momentum at the World Team Trials, recording a 10-0 technical fall before pinning Kaylynn Albrecht and Precious Wieser. The results earned her another opportunity to chase a world title. But motherhood had changed more than her schedule. It had given her another source of motivation.

“I want to inspire (my son) and all the other kids that have dreams, especially in wrestling,” Elor said a couple of months ago in an interview. She even described the experience of becoming a mother as a source of newfound strength. “I definitely think that mom strength is a real thing,” she said.

Now, after months of training, competing and travelling while balancing motherhood, her body has demanded a pause. “I’m disappointed that my body forced me to take a break right now,” Elor admitted in her Instagram post. That means the U23 Worlds are officially off her schedule, while the Senior Worlds remain a question mark.

Amit Elor still hopes to return stronger

Despite the uncertainty, Elor’s message was not one of despair.
Instead, she tried to find perspective in an experience that could easily have overwhelmed her. “As frustrating as this is, I’m also incredibly grateful,” she wrote. “Grateful it isn’t something worse.”

She also acknowledged how fortunate she was that the illness did not strike before the 2024 Paris Olympics, where she made history. At just 20, Elor defeated Kyrgyzstan’s Meerim Zhumanazarova 3-0 to become the youngest American wrestler ever to win Olympic gold. Her victory added another major achievement to a résumé that already included senior world titles in 2022 and 2023 and multiple age-group world championships.

Yet Paris was never supposed to be the end. Elor has repeatedly spoken about her dream of competing at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, especially because she was born and raised in California.

“Other than becoming an Olympic champion, my biggest dream of all-time is to go to the 2028 Olympics, because I’m from California,” she said after winning gold in Paris.

That dream remains in place. But for now, wrestling has to take a back seat.
Elor said she is spending the unexpected downtime with Aryeh and her family, appreciating the smaller moments while following up closely with her cardiology team.

“I know I’ll eventually be back even stronger,” she wrote. After everything Elor has already overcome, those words sound less like a prediction and more like a promise.