Is there a gold medal in Penn High School graduate Sarah Hildebrandt's future?

She already has a bronze medal.  She already owns a silver. 

Now, can Penn graduate Sarah Hildebrandt complete the trifecta and grab a gold during this week’s World Wrestling Championships in Oslo, Norway? 

According to United World Wrestling, the governing body of the sport, the answer should be “yes.” 

► Homecoming:Olympic bronze medalist Sarah Hildebrandt returns home to a hero's welcome

► Olympic bronze Sarah Hildebrandt dominates in Japan to win Olympic bronze

Hildebrandt, fresh off a bronze-medal winning performance at the Tokyo Olympics two months ago, is listed as the favorite to finish first in the women’s 50 Kg (110-pound) weight class, which takes the mat Tuesday and finishes Wednesday night. 

Hildebrandt will face Ukraine’s Bohdana Kokozei Yashchuk in her opening match Tuesday.

As expected, Hildebrandt – representing Team USA -- is installed as No. 1 seed in the 50 Kg weight class.  There are 20 women in the 50 Kg field. 

Hildebrandt has been automatically advanced to the second round.  The wrestler expected to be her toughest competition – Bulgaria’s  Miglena Selishka – must first advance from a qualifying round. 

There is no exact schedule for her match, but Hildebrandt will meet Kokozei Yashchuk, the No. 5 seed, early Tuesday morning, after the qualifying round is completed.  She must win three matches to reach the finals on Wednesday. 

To be fair, part of the reason for her favorite status is that wrestlers who finished ahead of her at the Olympics will not be there.   

For whatever reason, the entire Chinese delegation is skipping the meet, meaning Olympic silver medalist Sun Yanan – who beat Hildebrandt in the Tokyo semifinals – will be absent. And Olympic gold medal winner Yui Susaki of Japan has decided to sit out as well. 

But she can only wrestle the women who decide to show up, and Hildebrandt -- ranked No. 4 in the world by United World Wrestling – would be a contender in any case.  She won a silver medal at the 2018 World Championships. 

Hildebrandt’s toughest challenger is likely to be Miglena Selishka of Bulgaria, whom she beat by a 12-2 score in the Olympic quarterfinals. 

It was a hard choice for many wrestlers who competed at Tokyo, traveling to the World meet just weeks after an all-out Olympic effort.  

Normally, this would not be the case, as the Olympics would take priority and only non-Olympic weight classes would be contested at the World meet in the same year. 

But COVID-19 screwed up the schedule, and so in 2021, at least, all classes are on the docket. 

Of the nine medal winners who represented Team USA at the Olympics, only one has chosen not to compete in Oslo. 

Hildebrandt, still hurting from her semifinal loss in Tokyo, swore that she would come back at the World Championships and finish the job. 

The World meet started Saturday and runs through Oct. 10 at Oslo’s Jordal Amfi stadium. Men’s freestyle wrestling starts things off, then the women’s competition begins Monday and the week finishes with Greco-Roman. 

On Monday, former Culver Academies standout Kayla Miracle will compete in the women’s 62 Kg (137-pound) class. 

There is a six-hour time difference between Oslo and South Bend.  The first round of women’s 50 Kg wrestling begins at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday in Norway, or 4:30 a.m. locally. 

Semifinals begin at 4:45 p.m. (10:45 a.m. here) and the finals are slated for 6 p.m. Wednesday (12 Noon in Indiana). 

The meet will be livestreamed on FloWrestling. 

The United World Wrestling Website will have complete results at:  https://uww.org/ 

UWW’s preview states the following: 

“In women's wrestling, 50kg will be in action and all eyes will be on Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist Sarah Hilderbrandt. It's an opportunity to win a world title in the same year as the Olympic medal and with other three medalists from Tokyo missing, the USA wrestler is the biggest contender.  

“Her exceptional run at the Olympics saw her reach the semifinal where she was leading Sun Yanan (CHN) but the latter hit a front headlock late in the bout to win. Hilderbrandt has a silver medal at the Worlds from 2018 and three years later she has a chance to get one step further. 

Trying to stop her from doing that will be Miglena Selishka (BUL) who won the gold medal at the 2020 European Championships and faced the USA wrestler in the quarterfinal of Tokyo Olympics. Hilderbrandt notched up a stunning 12-2 win and advanced to the semifinal. Selishka will now try to reverse that result if the two face each other in Oslo.”