<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unbeaten in 38 matches, U.S. wrestler Adeline Gray doesn\u2019t look to end her winning streak anytime soon, especially when Olympic gold is on the line. And it\u2019s not just any Olympic gold\u2014Gray could become the first U.S. woman to win gold in wrestling.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After traveling to London as an alternate in 2012, the three-time world champion, who began wrestling when she was just six years old, is&amp;nbsp;heavily favored in the 75kg weight class, and she competes in Rio on Thursday.&amp;nbsp;SI.com caught up with Gray during a day of training at the United States Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. in February and in the SI.com offices soon after she qualified for the 2016 Olympics, where she discussed being the captain of her high school team, being a spokeswoman for female wrestling&amp;nbsp;and more.\u200B\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u200B\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Interview has been edited for length and clarity.&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SI: &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;What\u2019s your mindset heading into the Rio Olympics?&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AG:&lt;/strong&gt; It\u2019s amazing it\u2019s a breath of relief knowing that I can now focus on my goals and I don\u2019t have to worry about checkpoints to hit, all I have to do is stay healthy so I can compete in Rio. I\u2019ve been thinking about [gold] forever. It\u2019s awesome to have the opportunity to be the first Olympic gold medalist and that definitely starts with visualizing yourself on top. I\u2019m there. I\u2019m excited. I\u2019m looking forward to the opportunity to be on top.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SI: &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;How did you get started in wrestling?&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AG:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/strong&gt;I started wrestling when I was six years old. My dad, who was the youngest of seven boys, had four daughters and I think he looked at us like foreign objects like \u201Cwhat am I supposed to do with this?\u201D [laughs]. He didn\u2019t know dance or soccer, so he decided to teach us what he knew and loved. So he taught me wrestling. All my sisters tried it and the two oldest wrestled through high school and the other two ended up playing soccer. It was an amazing father/daughter bonding experience that I got to have my dad be my coach.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SI:&lt;em&gt; &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;In high school, did you face adversity for being a girl on the boys team?&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AG: &lt;/strong&gt;My freshman year the coach knew who I was and I had a very supportive system. The athletes knew how to treat girls on the mat, and it was accepted that girls were going to be in the wrestling room. No one said anything because the coach mandated those rules. It\u2019s amazing how influential a coach can be to young kids when they say to their athletes, \u201CShe\u2019s going to be treated as an equal athlete when she steps on this mat. She\u2019s going to earn her spot.\u201D Same standards, same equality on both sides and it was accepted.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When I moved to a new school as a sophomore, the coach wasn\u2019t overly thrilled with the idea of my sister and me on the team. These boys had never been on a team with a girl before and you could feel the hesitation with them. It was a younger team that had some growing to do, as wrestlers and in their maturity of dealing with a girl on the team. However I&amp;nbsp;beat out one of the best guys on the team and I think that\u2019s when I started to earn respect.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I started to take a leadership role. There was a group of five athletes who were able to teach moves and help the younger kids who didn\u2019t have the experience we had. My junior year I was honored to be voted captain, because those boys swallowed their pride and accepted me as an athlete on the team. I\u2019ve always been very vocal about the fact that I grew up wrestling boys and I wouldn\u2019t be here today without that. So many boys had to step on the mat and have the courage to do that because it\u2019s hard. It\u2019s a lose/lose situation in a lot of standpoints to lose to a girl. They had the respect to treat me as an athlete when I got out there.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I\u2019m a professional athlete and a female wrestler aiming to win an Olympic gold medal. It\u2019s a pretty outstanding journey and process that I\u2019m living right now and it would have never happened without those boys allowing me to be great on the mat and pushing me in those matches either though they were a little more athletic and stronger. It was definitely good for me to wrestle with boys.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SI:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;Are you comfortable being a spokeswoman for wrestling?&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AG:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/strong&gt;Absolutely. It\u2019s done amazing things for me. Just the idea of being in a non-mainstream sport never occurred to my parents when we were looking at sports for me to play and thinking ahead to possible scholarships. They would say \u201COk you\u2019ll play soccer. You\u2019ll get a college scholarship, you\u2019ll play four years of soccer, get your degree and you\u2019ll be done.\u201D My sister did that. It\u2019s such a difference. She\u2019s never been out of the country before, or had some of the experiences I have had.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I\u2019m trying to give a complete picture of what it\u2019s like being a woman professional athlete. Unlike men, we don\u2019t have an entire NFL team to look up to. It\u2019s sad that we don\u2019t have those very standard women that we can look up to, but we\u2019re starting to see that change. We have Serena Williams and the women professional soccer players.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;My dream of winning an Olympic gold medal didn\u2019t take picture until I got into this world and they threw it in my face so many times that I finally realized \u201COh! I do want that!\u201D When I was a freshman in college I thought I would go play college soccer, graduate and become a mom and work. There\u2019s nothing wrong with that because that\u2019s our society standards, but I didn\u2019t have the dream of being a professional athlete when I was younger. I didn\u2019t have the opportunity to dream about my life of being a world champion and what that means. It means being a role model, it means being a spokesperson.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It\u2019s great to discover new heights, but at the same time I just want that for the younger generation. I don\u2019t want those girls falling short and having that extra spirit being for fight for something. I think that can inspire those girls to work harder in their classes and practices. Everything they do. Their eating habits, everything. That extra little bit of effort over a 10-year period can be a huge difference for young girls.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SI: &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;What is a typical training day like for you at the Olympic Training Center?&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AG:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/strong&gt;[Pulls out her calendar] We have two mat practices four times a week. I do four days of lifting a week. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we do a cardio workout, a wrestling workout and an afternoon lift. Tuesdays we do a hard wrestling practice in the morning and then I lift in the afternoon. Thursday we do the mirror image of Tuesday. It\u2019s very regimented. I live by my calendar. It tells me where I\u2019m supposed to be all the time. Saturdays we usually have one or two workouts, and I have Sunday completely off. It all depends on if we have a competition coming up.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I try to do yoga when I can. We do a lot of stretching in our recovery workouts.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SI: &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;You\u2019re active on social media, do you think you use it more as self-promotion or a way to keep your friends and family updated on your life?&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AG:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/strong&gt;Facebook is how my family sees my trips\u2014I was in India for a month without a cell phone, so I would post photos onto Facebook so my family could see. Also for fans, it\u2019s important for them to see those trips and what my overall message is for those young girls because when I was growing up, I really didn\u2019t know that women\u2019s wrestling was an option.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I love the feedback. It\u2019s not a one-way street. You can share the high and lows with fans.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SI: &lt;/strong&gt;You\u2019ve traveled all over the world to compete, what has been your favorite stop?\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AG:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/strong&gt;My favorite place has been China. It\u2019s very different, and I like the experience of getting thrown into a new culture that\u2019s so different. It was my first major foreign trips where I spent some actual time seeing everything. Usually when we travel it\u2019s quick, maybe five days, in and out. You fly there, you sleep the whole day because you\u2019re exhausted, you have two workouts, then you weigh in, you wrestle and then you leave the next day. So you don\u2019t get to see anything, or eat a ton of the food because you\u2019re cutting weight. It\u2019s a business trip.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SI:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt; You were in Rio not too long ago, what was that experience like for you?&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AG:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/strong&gt;It was an Olympic test event and we got to check out the facilities and where we\u2019re the athletes will be staying. We got to see what the layout would be, what the mats will feel like, what the humidity with wrestling feels like. The humidity causes sweat to be different, which causes the mat to get slick.&amp;nbsp; We\u2019ll bring humidifiers in to our wrestling room to replicate what it feels like with the extra humidity in the air as we get closer to the games.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SI: &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Are you concerned about the Zika virus in South America?&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AG:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/strong&gt;It\u2019s something that you need to consider if you are planning to have a family very soon and a lot of women are in that situation. Or like Jordan Burroughs whose wife is pregnant, I think it\u2019s a huge issue.&amp;nbsp;But I\u2019ve adjusted my life to the Olympics and I can adjust it for two more years to deal with this. I got a few mosquito bites when I was in Rio, and hopefully I didn\u2019t contract the virus.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SI: &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Have you thought of your plans after Rio?&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;AG:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/strong&gt;No. Nothing. I only have my sights set on August&amp;nbsp;18th. I have no idea what my life will entail after. I could retire. I could wrestle for another eight years. I don\u2019t know and I\u2019m not going to make any decisions until after I compete in Rio. I\u2019ve sacrificed so much over the past three years and I just want to make sure I\u2019m ready to compete.\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/olympics/2016/08/16/adeline-gray-wrestling-rio-olympics>