At a recent tournament in Las Vegas, Michelle MacDavid found herself up against something new — a female wrestler.
That may be a sign of how new female wrestling is in this country, that she never faced another woman until she went to an Olympic pre-qualifier. It may also say something about the unusual road MacDavid is navigating as she seeks a spot in the 2016 Olympics.
The Queensbury graduate didn’t start wrestling until her senior year of high school and is only in her second year at the collegiate level, all of it against male competition. But Rio remains a goal.
“It’s going to be very difficult, but I think I can do it,” she said.
MacDavid’s love of one-on-one competition goes beyond wrestling. She said she’s spent several years training in mixed martial arts, most notably Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Her ultimate goal is to become a UFC fighter.
Not surprisingly, she sees Ronda Rousey as a role model.
“She’s the one who gives me inspiration to do everything,” MacDavid said. “… She doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”
MacDavid said she took up wrestling to further her MMA ambitions, but for now, wrestling is her main focus. She was a freshman last year at American International College, a Division II program for men.
“… The coach at first didn’t like the idea of having a girl on the team,” she said. “And I told him just watch me wrestling, please. And he watched me wrestle and he accepted me, and I had the best experience there.”
She didn’t care much for the school, however, so for her sophomore year she transferred to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she now studies political science. Amherst only has a club wrestling team, which means fewer opportunities to wrestle.
To get to the Olympics she needs to make it through a pre-qualifying tournament to earn a spot to the Olympic trials. That’s problematic, because she has to pay her own way. There’s a tournament in Colorado later this month, and another in Iowa in April.
Her first try was the Las Vegas event in December, and it didn’t go the way she had hoped. The rules were different from the folkstyle she’s used to in college and female opponents wrestled in different ways. She went 1-2.
“If I knew more freestyle I think I would have had a better chance,” MacDavid said, “because all the girls have been training with girls their whole lives. I’ve only had experience with guys.”
She’s considered making another move to the University of Jamestown in North Dakota, which has a women’s wrestling team. It looks like a good opportunity, but she likes Amherst and isn’t sure she wants to leave.
If she doesn’t make the Olympics this summer, she said she’ll definitely take aim for 2020. In the meantime, she said she may try to get into the UFC in the next year or two.
“I believe that, with wrestling and UFC, it’s the hardest pain you’re going to have to accomplish in life, and if you could go through that, then you can accomplish anything in life.”
MacDavid said she is not concerned about the physical dangers involved with either sport, nor is she concerned with what anyone thinks about it.
“Especially being a girl, a lot of people say you can’t do that, it’s a guy’s sport,” she said. “A lot of people make fun of me for that, and I just want to prove them wrong.”
Courtesy of: Post Star