Vickie Zummo

Vickie Zummo is from Hardyston Township, New Jersey. She played soccer and softball, then started wrestling after she went to one of her brother's matches.

She made the Wallkill Valley High School varsity in 1993, and her first opponent refused to wrestle her. Soon after, Tricia Saunders wrote to her and encouraged her to try out for the national team. Zummo left the school team to learn freestyle with coach Miles Hahn in Lakewood, New Jersey.

In 1994 she won the U.S. national title at 97 pounds, beating Marie Prado and Debby Weiss, then the top two Americans at the weight. She placed seventh at the World Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria, later that year.

In September 1995 she won the bronze medal at the World Championships in Moscow at 44 kg, about 97 pounds. It was her second straight World Championships. Michael Duroe, the U.S. women's World team coach, recalled the five-point throws she hit there. USA Wrestling named her its 1995 Women's Wrestler of the Year.

By January 1996 she was a two-time national champion, ranked third in the world, and still a student at Wallkill Valley. She trained at the New York Athletic Club and the North Jersey Athletic Club, almost always against male partners. Her personal coach was Roman Ruderman, a former Soviet national champion. She had stepped away from the sport by 2004, when USA Wrestling reported she might return.

USA Wrestling lists her 1995 bronze among its all-time U.S. World medalists, and the National Wrestling Hall of Fame marked the medal's anniversary in September 2026.