World champion Adeline Gray seeks historic gold at Rio Olympics
It took Adeline Gray just 66 seconds to guarantee her trip to Rio.
Focused and poised after winning the first match in a best-of-three final in the Olympic trials in April, the 75-kilogram (165-pound) wrestler annihilated her opponent, Victoria Francis, in the second. With a commanding 10-0 lead barely a minute in, she clinched her victory by technical superiority and advanced one step closer to securing the first U.S. Olympic gold medal in women’s wrestling.
“A positive thought is just as dangerous as a negative thought in high-pressure situations, and anything can happen,” said Gray, 25. “(Francis) came out to fight, and I, thankfully, got the ball rolling and finished the match quickly so nothing could happen. I walked out healthy, and now I’m going to stay that way to Rio.”
The three-time world champion — in 2012, 2014 and 2015 — loves the spotlight and “oozes with confidence,” said her coach Terry Steiner, who has worked with her for almost a decade.
After being an alternate in the London Olympics in the 63-kilogram (138-pound) weight class, Gray — a resident-athlete at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs — propelled her way up to the best in the world at a higher weight. Since 2012, women’s wrestling in the Olympics has grown from four to six weight classes.
Undefeated the last two years in international competition and riding a 37-match winning streak, she embraces the constant target on her back, but Steiner still reminds her of the dangers of complacency.
“She can’t get lackadaisical and protect something she doesn’t have,” Steiner said. He tells her, “‘There’s a gold medal waiting for you out there, but you have to go get it. No one is going to give it to you; you have to go get it. It’s not yours to protect yet.’”
The aura of confidence and positive energy around Gray also rubs off on her teammates, and she has earned their respect, he added.
“I trust and I know that she’s going to get the job done because I’ve trained with her in practice and I know that she works hard,” said Helen Maroulis, who will wrestle at 53 kilograms (116.5 pounds) in Rio. “Having a teammate like Adeline and a friend like Adeline, you’re in good company, and I think that’s really important.”
As much as Gray hopes to bring home Team USA’s first women's wrestling gold, she also strives to be the role model she never had.
Despite quickly discovering success on the mat at age 6 when her father, George, first taught her to wrestle, the lacking popularity of the women’s sport left the Denver native without a female wrestler to admire. But her perspective changed when she met world champion Iris Smith in 2005.
“(It) was the first time that I saw someone who was strong and beautiful and also a world champion,” Gray said. “It gave me that total package — that idea that I could be a female and be pretty and have my hair and nails done and also be a badass.”
With long, loose curls in her hair, soft eye shadow and lavender-polished nails — one gold on each hand — Gray said she sometimes wonders how much more she would have been able to achieve if she found a role model when she started wrestling instead of as a teenager.
But the soon-to-be Olympian vehemently encourages young girls to consider the sport because she never dreamed about the professional athlete life she’s living now and the opportunities that follow, such as education scholarships.
“You can go out there and be in combat sports and still be treated as an athlete when you step out on the mat and a female when you step off,” Gray said.