World’s famous sporting event is just a month away from showcasing an epic pool of talents from around the world. Yes we are talking about RIO Olympics 2016, which is going to take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016.
There are more than 10,500 athletes from 206 National Olympic Committees (NOCs). Qualifying for Olympics is not an easy task. Great National Players did fail a lot of times before they finally made it through and won medals for their respective countries.
One such athlete’s name is Adeline Gray. A USA Female Wrestler who has been qualified for Rio Olympics 2016. She is a three-time world champion wrestler. But some people like to focus on her gender rather than her athletic accomplishments.
In a recent interview with ESPN for Body Magazine, she talked about her unstoppable work ethnic and her game plan for coming Rio Olympics.
She also expressed her disappointment by saying, “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?’
She also added, ‘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.’
Well, its not that easy to wrestle in an International Platform as it seems to be on Salman Khan’s SULTAN movie. One needs to work hard, bear pain and what not.
She also talked about the sexism that she experience as a female wrestler. “I absolutely hate the statement, ‘You’re too pretty to wrestle” she said. “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,” later adding: “You are allowed to be a female and be considered beautiful and still be an athlete and still be badass in that realm”
Gray took up wrestling at an early age of 6 which was seven years before the 2004 Olympic debut of women’s freestyle wrestling – as a way to burn off excess energy and help her focus in school. She usually practiced against boys, which helped her rise through the national junior ranks.
She also highlights the issue of lack of opportunities for women wrestlers by saying, “Boys really have a leg up on us because they have these professional leagues that they can dream about. So if I can be like Serena Williams or like some of these main stars out there who are being iconic and groundbreaking and are role models for this next generation, it would be an honor and a blessing.”
Well, she is not the only female athlete who has been the victim of sexism when it comes to sports. Earlier there was a Kazakhstan Female Volleyball Player ‘Sabina Altynbekova’ who was also tagged as “TOO SEXY TO PLAY VOLLEYBALL”
Such kind of sexism is still prevailing since a long time which definitely happens to hamper an athlete’s mind and her performance in game.