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  • Photo: Photo/Tony Rotundo

    Mark Palmer •

    Photo: Photo/Tony Rotundo

    Olympian Gray only wrestler in 2016 ESPN Body Issue

    Adeline Gray, three-time world champion who will be wrestling for the U.S. women's freestyle team at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in August, is the only wrestler to be among the 19 athletes to be featured in ESPN The Magazine's annual Body Issue for 2016, the publication's website revealed Tuesday morning.

    Adeline Gray with an American flag after winning a world title in Las Vegas (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)
    In addition, Gray is the first Olympic wrestler -- male or female -- to be featured in the history of Body Issue since its debut in 2009. (Two former amateur wrestlers -- Jon Jones and Randy Couture -- were featured as mixed martial arts professionals. In addition, a professional sumo wrestler was featured in that inaugural issue.) Last month, Jordan Burroughs -- 2012 Olympic gold medalist, and member of the U.S. Olympic men's freestyle team for this summer's Games -- was named one of Sports Illustrated's Fittest 50 male athletes; no female amateur wrestlers made that list.

    Ten men and nine women will appear in the eighth annual Body Issue. Gray is one of seven Olympic athletes to appear in the upcoming issue which the publication describes as an "annual celebration of athletes' amazing bodies, where we stop to admire the vast potential of the human form ..." Among the other Olympians: Nathan Adrian (swimming); Emma Coburn (steeplechase); Greg Louganis (diving); Nzingha Prescod (fencing); April Ross (beach volleyball); and Claressa Shields (boxing).

    Other athletes to be featured in the 2016 Body Issue include Miami Heat star Dwayne Wade, UFC fighter Conor McGregor, Super Bowl MVP Von Miller, and Chicago Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta.

    Adeline Gray began wrestling at age 6. "Dad had been a wrestler, but he ended up with four daughters," Gray told InterMat in a 2012 feature . "He taught me a single leg at an early age."

    "Wrestling was something I did as cross-training for soccer."

    She later gave up soccer to focus on wrestling, and, in fact became a captain of the varsity wrestling team at her high school in Colorado.

    Adeline Gray with her gold medal at the 2015 Worlds in Las Vegas (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)
    The 25-year-old Gray has achieved much in her wrestling career. Just this year, she earned a place on the U.S. women's freestyle Olympic wrestling team, competing at 75 kilograms/165 pounds. Before that, Gray won the world championship, the Pan American Games, the U.S. World Team Trials, the U.S. Open and the World Cup. She did not lose a match all year.

    In a USA Today interview in March for Women's Sports Month, Gray shared how she came to focus on wrestling. "When I was a kid, soccer was my No. 1 sport and wrestling was No. 2," said Gray. "Wrestling was fun and something I did, but I never called myself a wrestler. That changed in middle school and early in high school when I saw the opportunities in women's wrestling and I phased out of team sports. I saw that I could get my education paid for and I just graduated debt free thanks to wrestling and I had the opportunity to travel on national teams and Olympic teams and world teams and meet so many amazing people."

    When USA Today asked about body-image issues for female athletes, Gray responded, "I think all girls go through body image issues. There's a stigma that girls to be pretty need to be petite. That's changing with strength being looked at as beauty and power being looked at as something to honor. If you go in and put in the work and have a more muscular boy, people realize that means health. Girls need to see beauty as more than am I skinny or am I fat. They can describe themselves as powerful and beautiful in the same sentence. Those are both words to describe female athletes. I'm a 175-pound female. I am considered a super heavyweight by international wrestling standards, but not by U.S. standards. It's a different image of how you fit in and you develop self-confidence. Sports can teach you that."

    ESPN The Magazine's Body Issue will be available online July 6 and on newsstands July 8.
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