Gray wants gold for more than just herself
By Joe Paisley
Colorado Springs Gazette
World champion and Rio hopeful Adeline Gray wants young female wrestlers to dream bigger.
If successful next month, she would be the first American woman to win Olympic gold in freestyle wrestling. Along with her own personal satisfaction, winning would show American girls what they could accomplish someday.
"It's just time," the three-time world champion said. "(U.S. women's wrestling) is at the point where we are established and are a respected program around the world. We have battled well at (world championships) but that missing piece to our puzzle is that gold medal. I would be honored to be the first one."
[caption id="attachment_13035" align="alignright" width="300"]
Adeline Gray is one of the athletes featured on the "Sport For All - any BODY can wrestle" wall in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame & Museum.[/caption]
Gray hopes she and other U.S. standouts like world champions Elena Pirozhkova and Helen Maroulis will show American girls that they can become high-level professional athletes. She takes being a role model very seriously.
"Some boys might not make the NFL, but they keep practicing and keeping their grades up (through high school and college) to try to realize that dream," the Denver native said after she won her second world heavyweight (165 pounds) championship last September. "Girls who don't have that kind of lofty dream to drive them may miss out. But I am a professional athlete and (they can be too.) Staying in wrestling has allowed me to have that dream of Olympic gold."
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Colorado Springs Gazette
World champion and Rio hopeful Adeline Gray wants young female wrestlers to dream bigger.
If successful next month, she would be the first American woman to win Olympic gold in freestyle wrestling. Along with her own personal satisfaction, winning would show American girls what they could accomplish someday.
"It's just time," the three-time world champion said. "(U.S. women's wrestling) is at the point where we are established and are a respected program around the world. We have battled well at (world championships) but that missing piece to our puzzle is that gold medal. I would be honored to be the first one."
[caption id="attachment_13035" align="alignright" width="300"]
Adeline Gray is one of the athletes featured on the "Sport For All - any BODY can wrestle" wall in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame & Museum.[/caption]Gray hopes she and other U.S. standouts like world champions Elena Pirozhkova and Helen Maroulis will show American girls that they can become high-level professional athletes. She takes being a role model very seriously.
"Some boys might not make the NFL, but they keep practicing and keeping their grades up (through high school and college) to try to realize that dream," the Denver native said after she won her second world heavyweight (165 pounds) championship last September. "Girls who don't have that kind of lofty dream to drive them may miss out. But I am a professional athlete and (they can be too.) Staying in wrestling has allowed me to have that dream of Olympic gold."
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