By Morty Ain
ESPN The Magazine
Adeline Gray might be making her Olympics debut in August, but she's far from a rookie: Gray has competed in every world championship since 2011, taking home three gold medals in two different weight classes.

Before heading to Rio, she sat down with the Body Issue's Morty Ain to talk about wrestling at her natural weight and the message she wants to send to young fans.

Women's wrestling is a great sport that a lot of people don't know about. I still get that sideways tilt of the head, like a puppy is looking at me: "Women wrestle?" It's almost disheartening, because I work very hard and it's a very competitive field internationally, and people in our country just don't really know about it.

I'm a three-time champion and should, in my eyes, be kind of all over the place. But there are still people who are like, "I didn't even know you guys were in the Olympics." "Yep, we are. It's been a few cycles now."

I absolutely hate the statement "You're too pretty to wrestle." I think people used to view female athletes as very butch, masculine -- you kind of had to disregard your femininity to excel at an elite sport. Now it's just a different world.

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