How This Olympian, Five-Time Senior World Champion Is Breaking The Stigma On Female Wrestling

The road to the Toyko Olympics has been a long and treacherous five years for the gold medal hopefuls. Having made the 2020 USA teams, many of them had to try out again for this year’s games, not knowing if they’d qualify again. Therefore, it’s not only crucial for an Olympian to focus on their physical physique, but they also have to remain mentally fit to thrive under the immense stress of being on the global stage. When the athletes acknowledge their fears, it can reduce the additional self-inflicted pressure they put on themselves.

U.S. Olympic wrestler and five-time senior world champion, Adeline Gray, serves as a role model for the next generation of female wrestlers and embraces sports psychology as a way to prepare for the games mentally. 

“There’s been some things that I think everyone feels,” Gray expresses. “They don’t really verbalize them and kind of let them eat away at them. One of the things is, and I think a lot of athletes in general, both men and women deal with is like ‘Is everything going to be the same after I win or lose? Is my family still going to love me? Is my husband going to love me? Is my mom going to love me?’ I used to call my mom before tournaments and be like, ‘Will you still love me if I lose?’… But it is something that I think people feel. They have this pressure that builds on them, that they allow to eat away at them. … It’s still important for it to be put out loud and make sure that I did get that confirmation, that that person will still love me if I win or lose. That alleviates a little bit of that pressure. Even if it’s a pressure that doesn’t seem realistic, it’s still really helped the situation.”

Gray started wrestling in elementary school. By the time her senior year of high school came around, women’s Olympic wrestling had just completed one full cycle since its inauguration in 2004. So she decided to train for the Olympics that year.

“I had to learn a new style of wrestling, which related more to swimming,” she explains. “You’re still in the water. There’s a lot of the same rules, except now you’re doing backstroke and freestyle. Then I started competing just against women. So my senior year of high school, I transitioned to just freestyle, and I joined the women’s team up at Northern Michigan University.” 

Gray attended the feeder program for high school students, meaning this particular program helped the athletes develop and become acclimated with the program they would soon be participating in full-time at the college level. She joined her future national teammates in the program, learning how to freestyle. She quickly qualified for her first senior world team. 

Her foray into the Olympics occurred in 2012 when she became an alternate. At the time, there were only four spots for women to wrestle in the Olympics; whereas, men competed for seven spots. Gray’s weight class was not an Olympic weight class in the 2012 games.

“I always tell people, there’s a little Asterix there because I was number one in the world at my weight,” she laughs. “But I had to go down to a different weight, and I had to compete at a smaller weight class. So I took second and went to the Olympics and had a terrible time. Being an alternate is awful because you get reminded that you didn’t win every single day. You’re just sitting there watching the Olympian get everything that you want, and these opportunities and everything that you could have possibly dreamed of, and you’re just sitting in the corner, just trying to be a good teammate. And at 19, you just don’t have enough perspective not to sit there and have a pity party. … It definitely set me up for success that I never wanted to be back in that position. I ended up going on to make the next two Olympic teams.”

She continues to be a driving force for the next generation of female wrestlers. She wants to break the stigma of girls wrestling.

“I have a very strong body,” Gray states. “I weigh 170lbs, sometimes 180lbs, and I am strong and powerful and dominant. I hope that people can feel just a couple ounces of the amount of joy that I have for my body. I’ve gotten to do that through my sport because I get paid to work out. But I know people need to build that relationship with their bodies. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t things on my body; like everyone, I have cellulite still. I have clothes that I put on that I feel like my shoulders look too big in. But I found a way to embrace what my body is and why it is the way it is.”

As Gray prepares for the Olympics in the upcoming weeks and transitions throughout life, she focuses on the following essential steps:

• Build your support team. Have people in your corner who will cheer for you no matter the circumstances.
• Believe in yourself. Your determination and self-confidence will take you places you could only dream about.
• Be proud of how far you’ve come. Celebrate the small wins, which ultimately lead you to the gold. 

“One of the pressures we feel as Team USA is that we’re supposed to win because we have these resources, we have the support team, we have the feeder programs, and we have people who are investing in us,” Gray concludes. “When we don’t win, we feel this shame that we did something wrong. But it’s a sport. You’re not going to win every time. … There isn’t that guarantee of anything happening. But at the same time, when we win, there’s sometimes not that same excitement because we were supposed to win.”