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degree. She was a wrestling junkie and began to set the highest goals possible for her career.
“I was delusional. I was saying I was going to go to the Olympics. It wasn’t even in the Olympics. They weren’t even talking about it. I had stars in my eyes,” she said.
In late 2002, after Downing had gradu- ated college, the International Olympic Committee announced that women’s wrestling would be added as a sport to the Olympic Games, beginning at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece. “It was amazing. There was no way I could ever know how that one decision could open up so many opportunities. At that time, we didn’t train together as a national team, maybe coming together twice before World Championships. There were no programs and we didn’t even have those expectations. Suddenly, all these tournaments we went to were preparing us for something even bigger. I couldn’t wait,” she said. After the IOC announcement, USA
Wrestling and the U.S. Olympic Committee created a women’s wrestling resident program at the U.S. Olympic Training Center where elite athletes could train together fulltime. Motivated and tal- ented wrestlers like Downing and her close friend Sara McMann could grow and improve at the highest level there. “Sara and I both moved to the training center two months after the program started. It was a big deal back then. Most people had been creating their own train- ing situations. This was our first opportu- nity to train with other elite athletes at the top of their game, or to have a full-time
Downing was a two-time World bronze medalist for the U.S. Larry Slater photo.
coach. At the Training Center, we were taken seriously all the time. Everybody else is training there for the same reason. We were in a place that facilitated high- level training,” she said.
Downing said that her stubbornness and ability to compete hard when fatigued were her top attributes.
“I was fairly strong for my weight. I am not the most athletic. I was a wrestler who could go hard in practice and when I got tired, I could go harder. It was proba- bly my strength. I had that in me. That was my only chance to equalize talented athletes,” she said.
For many years, Downing competed at 67 kg, the same weight as one of the
sport’s all-time greats, two-time World champion and nine-time World medalist Kristie Marano. She also faced Toccara Montgomery, who became a World medalist and Olympian. It took many years for Katie to get her chance at the World level.
“Kristie was a turning point in my
career. For many years, I beat her only once or twice. Every time, I’d go back and re-write the wheel, look at tapes, work on technique. There was a point we wrestled so many times, I was done try- ing to change. I was going to do every- thing I had done and do it harder. Then I beat her at the New York AC event. After
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19 USA Wrestler
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