Kayla Harrison made history at the 2012 Olympics when she became the first American to bring home gold in judo. As the Rio Games approach, she paused from her intense training to talk about her mindset, the pressure of repeating gold, her journey from sexual abuse survivor to advocate, as well as her plans after judo.Allison Glock: Rio is right around the corner. How are you feeling?Kayla Harrison: Im a little tired. But honestly, I wish it were tomorrow. Im ready to go. This morning we were doing video review. I know everyone Im going to fight. I know what size they are. Their predominant grip. Their favorite throw.AG: Are your opponents doing the same with you? KH: They should be. [Laughs] Its a fight, anything can happen. But everybody is beatable.AG: Youre 26 now, how is your Olympic training different this time around? KH: There is more pressure. I have a huge target on my back. And its harder to stay motivated. Five months before the 2012 London Olympics my knee gave out. Mentally, I was destroyed. I was terrified that I was going to be another could have been, another sad story. It took me about three days to really make up my mind, like, No! Screw that! Im going to be the comeback story. Im going to be the biggest, greatest, most epic comeback of all time.AG: You won gold while injured.KH: I fought in the Olympics with a dislocated knee. Id basically created a pothole, there was no cartilage left. After London, the doctors had to do whats called a TTO [tibial tubercle osteotomy] -- they had to break my tibia, move it over, realign my kneecap, take a piece of my hamstring, fix the ligament, remove all the pieces of cartilage floating around, poke holes in my kneecap to create blood flow. Its not easy to even run again after that kind of surgery. But, honestly, I believe everything happens for a reason because I was sitting pretty, Olympic champion, the first ever. I didnt have that grit anymore. And then boom! The surgery and rehab gave me that passion back. That fire. It gave me something to overcome.AG: How much of judo is mental versus physical? KH: At the highest level, mental is the biggest part. Staying calm, cool and collected is the difference between a win or a loss. Every night I visualize myself winning the Olympics, standing on top of the podium, hearing the national anthem, watching the American flag go up. I have a mantra I say before I fight: One match at a time, one minute at a time, one grip at a time, one exchange at a time, one breath at a time. I repeat it over and over again to keep myself in the now.AG: Does it work?KH: When your goal for the past four years is one single day, it is very hard to stay in centered in the moment. [Laughs] When I compete, my adrenaline goes crazy. Basically, Im like a super cave woman. If I had to fight a saber-toothed tiger, I would beat the crap out of that tiger. I get aaaamped.AG: Even after 20 years of competition?KH: In 20 years it hasnt changed.AG: You started judo as a young girl at the urging of your mother. KH: She thought it would be good for me. By the age of 8, judo was the only thing I wanted to do. It became my whole life. Judo was what my mother took away for punishment. By age 12, I was going every single day. By 13, I was waking up in the morning to run before school and then lifting weights after school and going to judo after that. I remember the first time I won a tournament, getting to stand on top of the podium, that feeling of accomplishment. I knew I wanted to be the best in the world at something, and it just so happened judo was the thing that I was good at.AG: When did you first discern how good you were? KH: When I was 12, a former Olympic coach challenged me to try and make the Olympic trials. I had never fought in the senior divisions. For two years, I trained and traveled all over the country and I got enough points and I actually qualified for the 2004 Olympic trials.AG: But you opted not to go.KH: I was growing. It was really hard for me to make weight at that point. I decided that, yes, this is what I really wanted to do, but I didnt just want to go to the Olympics, I want to go and win.AG: You?opted to compete in a higher weight class. KH: I think growing up, especially for young girls in judo or in weight-cutting sports, its really difficult. Youre told the lighter you are, the better youll fight.AG: But you dont agree with that. KH: No I dont. When I teach clinics, when I talk to young girls anywhere, I tell them, Look, I dont cut weight anymore. I eat like 6,000 calories a day. What I truly believe is that if youre going to win, youll win at whatever weight you fight. I always preach that strong is beautiful, strong is powerful and you shouldnt change your body for sport, for society, for anything.AG: Youre known for your power. KH: Youd be hard-pressed to find someone whos in better shape than me in the sport of judo. I train two to four times a day. At night its usually all sparring. A shark tank is what we call it. Ill stand on one side of the mat and then every minute someone fresh is coming at me trying to kill me, and its awesome.AG: Your own personal Thunderdome. KH: [Laughs] I also go to my strength and conditioning coach Paul?[Soucy] five days a week. We do what I call the death circuit. Its 10 to 12 exercises, very high intensity. It makes you want to cry. I have to sit in my car sometimes and mentally prepare for Pauls Palace of Pain.AG: Give me an example. KH: I have to do a sprint on a treadmill with no motor in it, and hell set it on a 50-pound load. After that I have to go push a 225-pound sled. I feel like in another life he would have been a medieval torturer. But at the end of the day, I know that no matter how deep into a match I get, or how tired I am, my opponent will be more tired.AG: Your coach, Jimmy Pedro, said, Mentally, Kayla will not break. Shes already fought the toughest battle of her life, so walking onto a judo mat is nothing for her. Do you agree? KH: Yeah, I do. Theres nothing in this life thats going to be harder than what Ive been through already. I may lose. But no one will break me.AG: Youre both alluding here to the years of sexual abuse you suffered at the hands of your former coach, who is currently serving 10 years in prison for the crime. KH: Sexual abuse is such a difficult subject because it does things to the mind and to the development of a young person that you cant really see. There are no scars on me, theres no injury, you cant physically see that Im wounded. But when youre 10 or 12 years old, and you go through something like that, it changes you. It changes you as a person. It leaves scars all over your heart.AG: What gave you the courage to finally come forward? KH: When you live a lie, when you lie to the people who are closest to you day in and day out, it eats away at you. I was at the point where I was ready to run away, I was ready to kill myself, or I was going to have to say something.AG: Youd been groomed by your abuser since you were a child. KH: I had a bright future in judo and I was excelling and I was starting to win on the senior level, but all the while I was changing as a person. I couldnt look people in the eye. I couldnt stand my brother and sister. I hated my mother. All I wanted to do was judo, all I wanted to do was hang out with my coach. By 16, I was this potential Olympic star, but I was a train wreck.AG: Thats the age you finally told your mother what hed been doing for years. After the initial relief of telling the truth, what happened? KH: I didnt want to get out of bed. I didnt talk to my friends. I cried every day. I slept 12 hours a night. To say that I was at rock bottom is an understatement. I hated judo, I hated my life.AG: Your mother decided to move you to Boston, to a new training facility, and a whole new world. KH: She knew she had to get me out of there or something bad was going to happen. I really did feel like what had once been my passion was my prison. I felt like every time I went to judo, I could hear his voice and I could see him yelling at me and I could picture my old life, and it haunted me and it tormented me and it just broke me down to the point where I was going to quit. It was too much. I couldnt do it. I wasnt that strong.AG: How did you find your way back to your strength? KH: In Boston, I lived in the athlete house. My new coaches got me a psychologist. They moved me up a weight class so that I could be normal and eat. They helped me come to terms with the fact that what happened to me doesnt define me. Its not who I am. Im Kayla Harrison. Im an Olympic champion. Im a judo player. Im a student. Im an activist. Im all of these things. Im a survivor. But Im not a victim.AG: It cant be easy to unpack all those memories over and over again, but you do by speaking publicly, often, and candidly about your experience.KH: One of the reasons that I decided to share my story is because sexual abuse is very much still a taboo in our society, something that people dont want to hear about. One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually assaulted by the time theyre 18. And those are just the kids who say something. I wanted to speak out and say, it is real, it does happen, it happens in churches and it happens in neighborhoods and it happens in sports. The most important message that I could ever give to people who are going through what I went through, who are struggling in that really dark spot, is to promise them they are not alone.AG: Have you seen the effect of your honesty and transparency first hand? KH: One time after I shared my story, this girl walked up to me and handed me a note, and she said, Just read it later. I slipped it in my pocket and I said, OK, I will. Thanks for coming, I hope you enjoyed it. I let her hold my medal, I think. That night I was on the plane and I pulled out the note. It said: Kayla, I was raped a month ago. And its really hard for me to get out of bed. But you give me hope that someday I will. Thank you. That was so powerful to me, that my speaking out or sharing my story can affect someone that much and give them hope. To me, thats bigger and better than any gold medal will ever be.AG: Youve also started a foundation. KH: Yes, the Fearless Foundation for survivors of sexual abuse. Im also writing a book with a psychologist using my story as educational material, as a guideline. This is what grooming looks like. This is how you can get help. These are all the stages of sexual abuse. My goal is for this book to be in every seventh-grade health class curriculum. Then maybe, you know, that number -- one in four and one in six -- will not be so big anymore.AG: You seem determined to bring this issue into the light, to make it a shared responsibility. KH: Its such a hard thing to trust again, to love again after sexual abuse. Its not something you can ever do alone. I still see a therapist every week. If it werent for therapy, if it wasnt for the people that I surrounded myself with, I never would have learned to love again, I never would have learned to trust again, I never would have opened up. If youre a survivor, its something that it takes a long time to bring back out. And it starts with sharing your story.AG: When are you most yourself? KH: Im always myself now. Im kind of done with pretending.AG: You said you felt a difference after the Olympics. In what way? KH: People listen when I talk now. [Laughs] It still shocks me sometimes. But also, internally, I realized my life-long dream. And when you do that, it settles you. Winning an Olympic medal gives you the comfort and security to be who you are and to not be ashamed of it.AG: What is the essence of judo for you? KH: There is so much more to judo than just the sport. The Japanese say judo is a way of life, a way of living. Not forcing things. For me, the most magnificent moments of Judo are when its effortless. When you just ... flow.AG: Is achieving flow easy for you? KH: No. [Laughs] Its really hard. I dont flow. At all. Maybe thats why I find it so beautiful.AG: What else do you love about your sport? KH: Judo is limitless. You can spend 20 years doing it and still not know everything. Its not like throwing a ball. Youre throwing another human. Who is trying to throw you. And you never get the same result twice.AG: For someone so goal-oriented, how do you handle the paradox of devoting your life to a sport than can never be mastered?KH: My coach Big Jim gave me the best advice. He said, If you leave it all out there, how can you have lost? As I close in on the end of my career, thats something I take to heart. I dont want to have any regrets in my life. So I leave it all out there.AG: That is good advice. Ever gotten any bad counsel?KH: Go ahead Kayla, take that drink. Its OK. [Laughs]AG: I think weve all gotten that same, dubious advice. KH: I actually havent had a drink since last year. But Im thinking Aug. 11 might be a good night to start. Cheap Stitched Athletics Jerseys . Reassurance came from Paul Tesori, his caddie and close friend whose newborn son is in intensive care in a Florida hospital. 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Trainer John McArdle is excited to have his forgotten three-year-old Power Trip back in work.Power Trip missed the spring after one run when he succumbed to an unexplained sickness.Power Trip has been back in work for just over a week and McArdle says the gelding has come back 40 or 50kg heavier.McArdle sent Power Trip to Adelaide for the Lightning Stakes at Morphettville to start his spring campaign which ended up being his only appearance.He only had one run and came from last to run fourth behind Viddora and Ocean Embers and then he got sick, McArdle said.Were not 100 per cent sure what it was.He wouldnt eat, but his bloods and that were all right and we scoped his gut, so whether he was a little travel sick, were not sure.We gave him three months off and hes come back a lot better for it.Power Trip showed potential from his first start when he downed subsequent Group One winning three-year-old Flying Artie in the Maribyrnong Plate at Flemington.The tthen two-year-old returned in the autumn and finished fourth in the Blue Diamond Stakes before stepping up to 1400m and running sixth in the Sires Produce Stakes.ddddddddddddPower Trip is the younger brother of Beau Rada and McArdle says the pair are chalk and cheese.Beau Rada weighs in around 510kg and is 15.1 hands while Power Trip tips the scales at 590kg and is 17 hands.While Beau Rada has struggled to get past 1000m McArdle hopes Power Trip may extend out to 1600m and be a contender for the Australian Guineas in March.We have to get him back first and firing and if he looks like hell run the mile then well head towards the Australian Guineas, McArdle said.After that he could possibly go on to Sydney, but if not a couple of those nice sprint races and then maybe even on to Adelaide, but well be guided by how he comes back. 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