Adeline Gray: Mother of two and six-time champion faces the ultimate test - Can she maintain her decade-long unbeaten streak at the wrestling world championships?
After giving birth to twins just over one year ago, the world waits to see if the American wrestling legend can reclaim her title in Belgrade.
Wrestling
She’s a six-time world wrestling champion, Tokyo 2020 silver medallist, new mother of twins and worldwide role model to women in sports.
A seventh world title isn't necessary to cement the name Adeline Gray in the history books, but she’s going for it anyways.
With more world titles than any female American wrestler ever, the 32-year-old Colorado native refuses to hang up the singlet and, after giving birth to twins, she returns to Belgrade for the World Wrestling Championships as a favourite in the 76kg weight class in hopes of landing on top of the podium once again — this time, just 14 months postpartum.
Adeline Gray celebrates her win over Kennedy Blades on 10 June 2023 in Newark, New Jersey.
In January of 2023, Gray slowly returned to training and found herself on the competition floor just four months later at the US Open in April.
“I was definitely not ready,” she laughed as she explained in a recent edition of the Olympics.com podcast how there were many positions that she had not even been in since attempting a comeback.
On that day she suffered a hard loss to 19-year-old Kennedy Blades who earned a 10-point mercy rule, but the seasoned vet returned to set the record straight on 10 June at Final X, beating Blades to win the entire 76kg class and qualify for Worlds.
Returning for her tenth World Championship, Gray has not lost a match at the global showpiece since 2013.
“I feel like it’s my time to shine,” she said.
“It’s an amazing experience to be able to have dedicated this much time and energy and have this much greatness and winning. Not everybody gets to experience being at the top of the world" - Adeline Gray talking with the Olympics.com podcast.
Adeline Gray’s biggest competition at the Worlds
The six-time champion and eight-time medallist will once again return to the Worlds as a favourite to win. Although the reigning champion, Türkiye’s Yasemin Adar, will not be on the roster this year due to a recent back surgery, it will be far from easy for the mum of twins to claim her seventh title.
To do so she may well have to overcome the challenge of the following athletes fighting in her weight division:
Epp Mäe
Estonia’s first World medalist Epp Mäe was the last person to face off against Gray in a World Championships final. In 2021, the pair had a showdown in Oslo as Mae was comfortably ahead for the majority of the match until Gray tied it up with less than one minute to go and pinning her with just two seconds remaining to win the world title.
Mäe is a four-time world medalist and will be looking to add gold to her collection in Belgrade.
Samar Hamza
Six-time African champion and two-time world medallist, Egypt’s Samar Hamza was the runner-up to the 2022 World Champion Adar. When she was 13 years old, Hamza gave up her karate career in pursuit of winning an Olympic medal. 15 years later, she is the only Egyptian woman to have ever reached World Championship finals, and is now going for her third medal. The steadfast and goal-oriented Egyptian is one for Gray to look out for.
Yuka Kagami
The 2022 World Championship bronze medallist, Japan's 21-year-old powerhouse Yuka Kagami is hungry for hardware as she climbs up the ranks in the world of heavyweight wrestling. 2019 was a breakout year for Kagami with a gold at the ultra-competitive Asian Championships and a silver at both the World U23 Championships and Golden Grand Prix Ivan Yarygin, an international freestyle wrestling tournament held in Krasnoyarsk, Russia in 2019.
Adeline Gray on Paris 2024: Third time lucky?
The Champ-de-Mars Arena will be the wrestling venue for Paris 2024 and it is located, quite literally, right below the Eiffel Tower.
“It’s going to be the best location of any wrestling competition ever,” Gray recalled being told when hearing about the venue.
If she finishes in the top four of her weight class at the Worlds, she will secure a quota for the United States and earn her place at the US Olympic Trials in April 2024. To have the chance to officially be named to the 2024 US Olympic Team, she will then have to dominate her weight class and finish first at the countries’ trials.
With the most world titles of any American female and the only one to win back-to-back twice, the two-time Olympian has not seen as much success at the Olympic Games.
She represented the United States in Rio 2016, but suffered a devastating quarterfinal loss after going in a favourite to win. At the Tokyo 2020 Games in 2021, she just missed out on the gold medal, finishing in second to Germany’s Aline Rotter-Focken.
Even without the results she had hoped for, she used both Games as an opportunity to empower women in wrestling and sports everywhere.
“Adding that Olympic title to a female name provides this validity that the world understands,” she said.
In her view, women aren’t necessarily part of the conversation when it comes to professional sports and athletes, but the Olympic title provides understanding to those who don’t otherwise see their extreme efforts.
Paris 2024 offers Gray the opportunity to fulfil her Olympic dreams at the third time of asking and she will do everything within her power to be there - starting with these Worlds in Belgrade.
And as if the magic of six world titles and giving birth to twins wasn’t enough, the world is going to witness the power of the female body and mind through Gray as she fights to land on top of the podium, once again.
You can listen to Adeline Gray sharing her experiences from pregnancy through post-birth recovery and coming back to the world stage on the Olympics.com podcast.
As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024.
