Cody Land and Coach Jake Elkins

Cory Land, a senior high school student from Moody, won the title of Greco Silver World Medalist Wrestler for his weight class at the Greco Roman Cadet World finals. The worldwide competition took place in Budapest, Hungary. 

He was welcomed home on the night of July 26 by a group of his fellow high schoolers, the Moody Police Department and the Moody Civic Center.

Land competed on Team USA after winning the World Team Trials. At this point in his wrestling career, Land is a four-time state champion and has competed on national and worldwide levels. 

“It doesn’t matter where you’re from or how much you have or don’t have, as long as you can be consistent, put the world in and have fun with it, it will all be worth it,” said Land. 

In the U.S., it is common for the wrestling style to be “folk,” but Land is trained in freestyle and Greco-Roman, which are Olympic styles of wrestling. 

Wrestling is what his coach, Jake Elkins, considers to be the last true “American Dream.” According to Elkins, wrestling has a lot less to do with natural ability and body type than other American sports. He said you can be world champion, no matter what size you are.

Land started wrestling with Elkins’ team, the Iron Clad Wrestling Club, in November of 2015 at the Moody Civic Center. Land has been training since fifth grade, and he has put over 10,000 hours into wrestling.

“It’s been a long road with a lot of tough practices and hard weight cuts, but also a lot of fun times because this is what I love to do,” said Land.

He also wrestles for Moody High School’s wrestling team and continues to train with Elkins during the off season. To maintain his weight class, Land lives strictly on a dietary plan to control his muscle to fat ratio. Elkins said he has shown “intense discipline.”

“There’s a lot of pressure that comes with trying to be a world class athlete at 17 years old. He’s a bengal tiger running around with puppies. In local tournaments he wants to show up and make weight to wrestle like everybody else,” said Elkins.

When Land was only a high school freshman he won a national competition in Virginia. The next year he made the World Team in Greco-Roman wrestling, which is when wrestlers start competing on a world-wide level. Following that, he competed at the cadet world championship in Bulgaria.

“Right now there’s thousands of kids in the country who can watch this kid from Alabama wrestle, who has every excuse not to be good, but he still did it. That’s the American dream anybody can get behind,” said Elkins.

According to Eklins, Land could be well on his way to becoming an Olympian.

“He’s being recruited by basically everybody in the country and every major program. During college he will have the opportunity to compete at the world and Olympic level if he chooses to,” said Elkins.