MUMBAI: When the time came for Helen Maroulis, at 20, to start preparing for what potentially could have been her first Olympics, the American had to resort to videos of male champions. There were no American women who had won an Olympic gold in wres‑tling. An anxious Maroulis failed to make the US team for 2012 London Olympics, but she accepted and channelled her fears, rather than overcoming them, to win USA their first gold medal in women’s wrestling at Rio in 2016.
“I remember before 2012 I was studying all the great US champions,” says Maroulis, who was here for a Pro Wrestling League promotional event. “I thought in order to achieve what they have I had to be like them. And I wasn’t. I couldn’t be like them. I couldn’t be a male, first of all. And I was emotional, they weren’t, and I thought that was the problem. But I have realised that our weaknesses can also be our strengths. Being emotional and crying so much also meant that I put my heart into everything.”
The 26-year-old cried a lot before and during Rio, including ahead of that fateful day when she struck gold. On August 18, 2016, Maroulis defeated three-time Olympic champion Saori Yoshida 4-1 in the final to win the 53-kg women’s freestyle event.
Olympics had a special place in her journey. Though her father, a Greek immigrant, had wrestled in school, he wasn’t too keen that his daughter continue in a sport that had no future. Maroulis remembers that she had struggled in every sport before wrestling. “Gymnastics, ballet, dancing, they asked me to quit, the coaches asked my mom not to bring me back so I would just cry.”
With wrestling, which began with her playing ‘dummy’ for her younger brother on the mat, it all clicked. “Wrestling, it wasn’t even about being something or proving something. It was just a sport that I enjoy doing,” she says. But she was the only girl in the gym and was constantly reminded of it. Boys did not want to spar with her. Her parents wanted her to quit, but with women’s wrestling being announced as an Olympic sport for 2004 Athens, it gave her a purpose.
“I nearly lost the sport I truly loved,” she says. “The reason I got it back was because of Olympics, so how could I not go for that?” Having failed to make the team in 2012, Maroulis wrapped herself in a bubble for the next four years. “Eat, sleep, wrestle. I didn’t have any friends,” she says. It was her comfort zone. But having won the medal, she emerged with a new confidence.
“I started taking dancing lessons before the worlds this time,” says Maroulis. Having bumped up to the 58-kg category for the World Championships in Paris in August this year, she proved her mettle again by bagging gold. She might have perfected the wrestling moves, but anxiety insists on keeping company.
“I think it’s good. I think it’s healthy,” she smiles. “And maybe it works for me, because I’m doing well while being anxious.”
deepti@newindianexpress.com