Waiting on a Miracle: Culver grad better prepared for second chance at Olympics

 

Kayla Miracle ’14 feels she’s better prepared heading into the Olympics this year after a disappointing first-round loss three years ago in Tokyo.

“I understand what I’m about to be getting into and just how crazy it is. It’s not just a normal tournament. It’s the Olympic Games. So everybody knows what that is, regardless of what sport it is. There’s a lot more hype around it, a lot more excitement,” she said.

And a lot more pressure. Miracle concedes the hoopla was overwhelming three years ago when she competed in the Olympics, which were delayed a year because of the pandemic. She called the first-round loss “heartbreaking.” She was so devastated she took two months off to recover mentally and emotionally.

She said she’s been working on techniques to combat the anxiety and distractions that come with the Olympics. She is looking at the competition as a series of six-minute matches instead of focusing on the overall goal of winning gold.

“I have my first match. It’s six minutes. I don’t have to be thinking, ‘This is the first round of the Olympics,’ or, ‘If I win this, then I’m in the quarterfinals,’ ” she said.

Miracle’s quest for a medal at 62 kilograms is scheduled to get underway in Paris on Friday, Aug. 9 at 5 a.m. Eastern time. She is seeded eighth out of 16 wrestlers. The matches will be streaming live on Peacock. The 62 kg gold medal match will be on between 12:15 p.m. and 3:45 p.m. on Saturday.

At Tokyo, Miracle focused too much on the outcome and what it would mean to win the match.

“My mind just spun in that, and I didn’t wrestle the way I normally wrestle,” she said.

She wrestled more to not lose, rather than wrestling to score points. She said her focus this time in Paris in July will be on wrestling well and not to be overwhelmed by anxiety.

“Those emotions are fine,” she said. “You just can’t let them control you.”

Miracle also believes she is better prepared physically and as a wrestler this time around with a coach, Lee Pritts, and training partners who have pushed her.

“There are some areas where maybe I’m not the strongest in and they’ll push me every single day to force me to get better at those,” she said. “It’s about getting 1 percent better in each area every single day.”

Her main focus is getting off to faster starts.

“I sometimes start matches slow and timid. I wait for the match to get going to really press on the gas. I think the biggest thing I need to do is step on the gas from the first whistle,” Miracle said.

At 28 years old, Miracle is among the more experienced Americans on the team along with Sarah Hildebrandt, who won bronze in Tokyo, and Helen Maroulis, who won gold in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and is the first female American wrestler to qualify for three Olympics.

Miracle said she realized she might have a future in wrestling beyond high school when she went to a national tournament in Fargo, North Dakota, in 2013 where Hildebrandt was her roommate.

“She was doing all the things I wanted to be doing, but I didn’t even know it was possible at the time,” she said. “Just seeing these girls overseas and competing against whatever random country and getting to know them and talk with them inspired me. The most important thing is, representation matters.”

Miracle was a high school freshman when Hildebrandt was a senior. Hildebrandt was the first girl to qualify for an Indiana High School Athletic Association semistate tournament in 2010.

“It was cool to follow in her footsteps and take it another step,” Miracle said.

 

 

 

As a sophomore at Culver in 2012, Miracle became the first female to qualify for the IHSAA wrestling state finals by placing fourth at regionals in the 106-pound weight class.

“That is, and forever will be, one of my biggest accomplishments,” she said.

Miracle won her first two matches at semistate, a 17-0 technical fall and a 10-0 decision before losing by a point in the semifinals and ultimately finishing fourth place.

Miracle pointed out that New Haven junior Julianna Ocampo took it a step further earlier this year when she placed sixth at 106 pounds in the state tournament, providing inspiration to young female wrestlers throughout Indiana.

Miracle was excited to learn that the IHSSA announced in late April that it would recognize girls wrestling as a varsity sport starting next school year.

“It’s amazing,” Miracle said. “It’s about time. Indiana has had some amazing women come out of the state in wrestling and we have two girls on the Olympic team last quad and this quad – myself and Sarah Hildebrandt – so I’m glad that Indiana is finally sanctioning it.”

Miracle said the IHSAA sanctioning girls wrestling will make the sport more accessible because some girls are intimidated by the thought of trying to join a boys team. Even as good as she is, Miracle said that was challenging for her.

“After you get to high school and the guys start to become not boys but men, and as you get up in the weight classes, it’s a bit different,” she said. “You’re not just a bunch of kids. The strength isn’t easily matched. I really had to focus on my technique because I couldn’t outmuscle them.”

She said having to focus on technique made her a better wrestler.

“In the end, it really helped me wrestling guys. And I still train with guys. Almost every week I’m going against a guy,” she said. “There are pros and cons of both, whether you’re just training with women or men. I think it depends on the individual and what they need.”

Miracle said wrestlers need three types of people to train with: “Somebody who can beat you up, somebody that you can beat up and somebody who you can go head-to-head with and it will be really tight and it will flip flop.”

She said in college, being on an all-female team, she would sometimes have to challenge herself by either wrestling against larger competitors or by limiting herself by allowing herself to use only certain moves or forcing herself to try more difficult moves.

Miracle started telling people she wanted to win an Olympic gold medal in wrestling when she was 4 years old – four years before women’s wrestling was added to the Olympics in 2004.

“I heard what it was. I knew it was the pinnacle of sports. Then I started doing this sport at 4 and I love it so much, I was like, ‘I’m going to be an Olympian, and I’m going to be a gold medalist!” she said.

 

 

Wrestling came naturally to Miracle, so the prospects didn’t seem so unlikely. Her father, Lee, is a wrestling coach, coaching his daughter at Campbellsville University in Kentucky. He still coaches there.

Miracle said whether having a father who was a wrestling coach was a positive or a negative “depended on the day you asked me.”

“It was great that he knew my goals and he shared that passion with me. He would hold me accountable. … He has always believed in me and held me to a high standard. That helped me get to where I am today,” she said. “It also was not so great because we had to figure out the dynamic of when he wore the dad hat or when he wore the coach hat and when I wore the athlete hat or the daughter hat.”

She said sometimes they weren’t on the same page of which mode they were in. It made for some difficult dinners.

“Sometimes after a big loss I would need my dad. I just wanted the support,” but he remained in coaching mode, she said “That was something that was difficult for us to figure out -- the dynamic of that relationship at times.”

She said it’s easier now that he isn’t her coach, but still offers advice on training and strategy. Her brother, Shawn, who is four years older, also inspired Miracle. He wrestled at the U.S. Military Academy.

Miracle won four straight World Women’s Collegiate Wrestling Association championships, becoming just the fourth woman to accomplish that feat.  She also is a two-time silver medalist at the world championships.

Miracle said she stays engaged with Culver because it was such a transformational place.

“That was my life for four years. It shaped who I was as a person,” she said. “I don’t think I would be who I am today without having those years there.”

She said she’s proud to be a Culver alumna and talks the school up as often as possible.

Miracle isn’t sure what’s next after the Olympics, saying it’s been a challenging four years with COVID delaying the Olympics for a year, a disappointing Olympic performance, a serious knee injury and problems with her training situation.

“It’s been a lot. There’s been times where I’m like, ‘I’m done after this,’ ” she said. “But I really don’t know how I’m going to feel. I could do super well and be like, ‘I’m hungry for more.’ Or, I could do super well and be like, ‘I’m good. I’m satisfied.’ ”

She said she also could do poorly and decide she’s had enough, or a poor performance could light a fire under her. She saw Hildebrandt say four years ago she was done after losing at the Olympics, yet she’s back again this year.

Then again, she may want to continue wrestling.

“I never want to say I’m retiring or I’m done, because I never know how I’m going to feel,” she said.

We’ll have to watch to see if she can have a Miracle finish.