Meet the U.S. Olympic Women’s Wrestler Who’s Shattering Gender Stereotypes—And Going for the Gold

For the next few weeks, all eyes will be fixed on the gifted athletes breaking records and defying expectations at the 2016 Olympic Games. Chief among them is Adeline Gray, the 25-year-old world champion wrestler who could well bring home the first-ever gold for the U.S. women’s team.

If that sounds like a lot of pressure for a fledgling Olympian, it is. And yet Gray remains remarkably calm when it comes to handling her potentially history-making turn on the world stage. “It is a new beast, but for the most part, it’s going to be another major tournament—and I’m good at winning major tournaments,” Gray says, calling from the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, where she’s spent much of the past eight years (“I train here, eat, sleep, and breathe here,” she adds). Though Gray first entered the sport at age 6—thanks to a father who had long loved it—that self-assured manner didn’t take hold until high school when she landed on the boys’ varsity wrestling team and started winning national championships. “I realized, ‘Wow, I’m kind of good at this,’ ” she says, laughing.

These days, Gray’s easy confidence is breaking ground for female wrestlers around the world. For centuries, wrestling has been a traditionally male-dominated pursuit—women’s wrestling was not added to the Olympics until 2004—but as the only female training at her school’s varsity level, Gray developed a strong support network with a coach and team that made sure she was treated as an equal. Not every female wrestler, she admits, is so fortunate. “A lot of girls weren’t as lucky—had coaches who didn’t want them there and didn’t make them feel like they deserved to step on the mat,” she says. Even for someone as talented as Gray, it was hard to see a long-term future in the sport, until a chance meeting with a former world champion changed her viewpoint. “I was like, ‘Wow, you’re beautiful and strong and feminine and still winning world championships,’ ” she says. “It solidified that there is a future in this, and that’s what we’re trying to impress on the next generation of girls—that this is an option and they have the same rights and opportunities as the boys.”

Thanks to activist-athletes like Gray, who uses social media as a platform, women’s wrestling has become one of the fastest-growing sports in the U.S., with a number of all-female leagues cropping up in recent years—an important move, Gray says, in easing some of that intimidation factor. “I owe so much for having the boys wrestle me—I feel it really made me a better athlete—but it does hold back some girls from competing in the sport,” she says. “Now, we get a lot of girls who grew up just wrestling girls, which is great.”

In Gray’s eyes, there’s a continued need for support, not only for wrestlers, but for all aspiring female athletes across the board. “It’s important for [women] to see that they can be a professional athlete beyond high school or college,” she says. “Those dreams are important, and they don’t exist for young girls.” Watching Gray compete in Rio next week, a new generation will be cheering as it watches those dreams take shape.

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