Kayla Harrison envisions golden moment at Olympics OLYMPICS THIS STORY APPEARED INMarch 04, 2012|John Powers

World champ Kayla Harrison overcame the pain of being sexually abused by (Kayana Szymczak for the) Third in an occasional series profiling US Olympic hopefuls training for the Sum mer Games in London. WAKEFIELD - The time and place are five months and an ocean away, but Kayla Harr ison already knows what shell be doing on Aug. 2. Its something that I go to bed thinking about every night, said the former world jud o champion, who is favored to win a medal at the London Olympics. I go through ev ery single match that I could possibly have. I go through my weigh-ins. I go thr ough what Im going to have for breakfast. I almost envision what it was like in Beijing. Every day in my mind, when I go to sleep, I win the Olympics. So when I get there, itll already have happened a mil lion times. Jim Pedro, the former world titlist and two-time Olympic medalist who coaches Ha rrison, preaches visualization and positive thinking. This is my day, this is my purpose, she keeps telling herself. Harrison had that day two years ago in Tokyo when she became the first American woman since 1964 to win a global crown in judo. Which is why she was bitterly di sappointed when she had to settle for bronze at last summers championships in Par is. The difference between me and the other girls on the podium is that I consider th is a failure, Harrison said then. The udo ago ars idea that a medal of any color would be a disappointment shows how far USA J has come since the sport was added to the Olympic womens program two decades and how far Harrison has come since she turned up at Pedros dojo here five ye ago to train with Team Forces other Olympic hopefuls.

If you want to be a champion, said the 21-year-old from Middletown, Ohio, you have t o go where the champions are. Harrison had hit the competitive ceiling back home, so a relocation was inevitab le. If I was going to get to the level that Im at, I was going to have to leave Ohio e ventually, she said. It was always probably going to be this place. It was just a m atter of when. But it was what happened off the mat that made her depart sooner rather than lat er, as Harrisons painful secret came to light - that her coach Daniel Doyle had s exually abused her for several years. My mother found out, she immediately pressed charges, and then a month later, she packed me up and shipped me up here, said Harrison. She was, she recalls, an emotional, distraught, 16-year-old car wreck, and Pedro an d Big Jim, his father and coaching partner, immediately realized that judo lesso

ns were a secondary priority. When we heard Kaylas story, it was heart-wrenching, but we knew that the most impo rtant thing that we could do was to get her back on track with life, said the youn ger Pedro. She had potential but she certainly had more important things to deal with. Kayla needed everything from us. She needed psychological support, she needed emo tional support. She needed people that she could confide in, people that she cou ld trust who were positive. Breakthrough and closure What had happened to her was not her fault, Pedro told her, so she shouldnt blame herself. I was crying my eyes out and telling him, It takes two to tango, Harrison said. And h e looked at me and said, My daughter is 12 years old, and if anyone ever did to h er what was done to you, I would kill him. Now I realize that what happened to me was wrong, but its one of those things that takes time. Going to tournaments cranked up her anxiety. The judo community in the United States is small so everyone knew, although they didnt mention my name in the papers or anything that it was me, Harrison said. And s o I felt like all eyes were on me. I couldnt go into a room without feeling like people know whats going on. It was rough. It was a conversation with the elder Pedro that finally led to a breakthrough. I was crying because I just didnt want to do it anymore, Harrison recalled. It wasnt w orth it to me. I was tired of being the tough one, I was tired of being the stro ng one, I was tired of being that girl. And Big Jim said to me, You know what, kid? It happened to you, but it doesnt defin e you, and someday youre going to have to get over it. And he was right. Im only a victim if I allow myself to be. What Harrison needed was a formal conclusion, and it came four years ago in an O hio courtroom. That was truly the toughest day of my life, she said. I remember calling Jimmy becau se I was hyperventilating and I wasnt sure that I was going to be able to go thro ugh with it. Although he pled guilty [to illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place] I still ha d to speak in front of the judge and say my piece, and I just didnt think I could face him. Jimmy walked me through it like it was a match. He said, ll the judge the truth, you sit down, and thats it, its youre done. You dont have to worry about this anymore. to be dealing with this the rest of your life. This will u. And it was. Doyle was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison and banned for life from coach You walk up there, you te over. You do your part and Its over with. You dont want be good closure for yo

ing by USA Judo. And Harrison, finally, could put her nightmare behind her and b egin working toward her dream. What happened to me happened to me because of this sport, she said, but I dont think I would have been able to survive without it. It gave me a goal. It gave me some thing to push for. On the world stage Pedros dojo was a whirlwind of activity and ambition in 2008, with the top player s gunning for Olympic spots. Grappling with them daily was humbling, but it was nothing new for Harrison, who had always been ahead of herself. Id always fought the next age group up, the next weight group up, she said. I started fighting in the senior womens division when I was 12 years old, so I had a lot o f experience losing but also fighting older women, more experienced women, tough er women. I was thrown in with a pack of wolves and I had to learn how to run on my own. At Pedros, Harrison was knocking heads with Ronda Rousey, who that summer went on to become the first American womens Olympic medalist in the sport and now is an up-and-coming mixed martial arts fighter. It was nothing personal on the mat, just business, said Harrison. We were kind of fre nemies. If the US had qualified in the 78-kilogram class, she and Rousey would have been teammates in Beijing, since Harrison went on to win the trials. Instead, Harris on went to China as Rouseys sparring partner and got a priceless sneak preview of the Games. We stayed at Beijing University and ate with the athletes every day, she said. I had breakfast sort of close to Michael Phelps. It was really awesome. When Rousey won the bronze at 70 kg, Harrison became convinced that she could ma ke the podium, too. That fall she won the world junior title (my coming-out party), made the senior team in 2009, then claimed the world crown a year later. She wasnt at her best that day, but then, neither was her Brazilian opponent. You think that you have to be phenomenal and spot-on, that you have to have those white moments where nothing can go wrong, Harrison said. We were both terrified. N either one of us wanted to make a mistake. I just had to make one less than her. What she learned last summer was that retaining the title was more difficult tha n winning it. Heading into the worlds as reigning champion, Kayla unquestionably felt pressure, and I think that pressure got to her, said Pedro. She was really nervous about her training. A lot of tears, a lot of emotion, tension, stress. Yet Harrison competed superbly at the championships, losing to Frances Audrey Tch eumeo, the eventual victor, in the semifinals. Still, her bronze medal might as well have been tin. I think Im quoting Michael Jordan when I say this, but failure is my fuel, she said. Its always made me hungrier. Its always kept me on my toes. In a really good place

A former world champion going to Olympus as an underdog is a dangerous rival, an d Harrison has spent most of the winter taking out her frustrations on the peopl e shes most likely to face in London. Twice she has beaten Olympic champion Yang Xiuli as part of a run that included Grand Prix victories in Qingdao and Dusseld orf, a silver in the Grand Slam in Paris, and a triumph at the World Cup in Buda pest.

Theres no unknown, said Pedro. Theres no girl that we hope she doesnt fight. Shes bea everybody. Theres no guarantee that Harrison will do it on one day in London. One mistake, o ne unguarded moment and she can be thrown for a match-ending ippon. Her coach knows first-hand how precarious the sport can be. In 2000, he went to Sydney as the world champion, lost his opening match to a Korean, and didnt make the podium. Then after a two-year retirement, he came back and won bronze in Ath ens.

Without question, Ive been able to help Kayla psychologically, he said. I can say, Ive been through this before. I know what youre feeling. But this is what you have to do if you want to win the Olympics. So Harrison is in Japan this week for a camp with 400 other women. From there, s he goes to China for more training. Then there are the Pan Am Championships in M ontreal, possibly the World Cup in Miami, then the Moscow Grand Slam and a tourn ament in the Czech Republic. Then its London, where the mind-script she runs through every night is designed t o produce the first gold medal by an American judoka. If Aug. 2 turns out to be the day Harrison figures it will, she might call it a career, even though shed still be a contender for 2016. Ive only had two goals in my life o be Olympic champion - so if I reach uits, she said. If I dont win the winning it so I plan on putting that one is to be world champion and the other is t those goals, Im probably going to call it q Olympics, Ill definitely go for 2016, but I plan on gi in the back of my closet.

Harrison still would like to go to college (Im one of those weirdos who loves scho ol), and shes at the top of the list to be a firefighter in Marblehead, where she l ives. For the next five months, though, her purpose is to prepare for one day. Honestly, Im in a really good place, Harrison said. I just got engaged. I just won a butt-load of tournaments. Im going to the Olympic Games, the highest stage for my sport, the best of the best. So Im happy. John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com.