A former Missouri Valley College women’s wrestler, Clarissa Chun, has been inducted into the Class of 2022 National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
According to a release from the National Wrestling Hall of Fame organization, Clarissa Chun won the world championships in 2008 and captured a bronze medal at the Olympics in 2012. She is four-time U.S. Open champion, where she competed in five world championships and two Olympics -finishing fifth in 2008 when she was the first wrestler from Hawaii to qualify for the Olympics.
Chun also won four Pan American Championships and was a silver medalist at the Pan American Games in 2011. She was a four-time Sunkist Kids International Open champion and also captured championships at the Dave Schultz Memorial International, Poland Open, Open Cup of Russia, New York AC International, Vehbi Emre Golden Grand Prix, and Klippan Ladies Open. She was a two-time Hawaii girls state high school wrestling champion for Roosevelt High School and placed third in the 1999 USGWA High School Nationals.
Officials say Chun made history when she won the first Hawaii state title in the first year that the state held an officially sanctioned tournament for girls. She also qualified for state in swimming and bowling and competed in judo and water polo.
She competed for Missouri Valley College, where she was a star on one of the pioneer women’s college wrestling team programs. Chun made the Senior Women’s National Team during her time at MVC.
Chun was a two-time University Nationals champion and placed fourth at the University World Championships in 2004. She placed fifth at the 2001 Junior World Championships, after finishing eighth in 2000, and was the 2000-01 FILA Junior Nationals champion.
Since 2017, she has been Assistant National Women’s Coach for USA Wrestling, during which American women have won six gold medals, four silver medals and five bronze medals at the world championships and a gold, a silver and two bronze at the 2020 Olympics. Chun received her bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and was inducted into the Hawaii Sports Hall of Fame in 2018.
For more information about the Hall of Fame, please visit www.NWHOF.org.