NEW YORK — Kayla Harrison unraveled from her bed one day in spring 2013, took a step and collapsed.
“I finally needed to call a doctor,” she said.
Back in March 2012, Harrison heard her left knee snap while training in Japan and thought she partially tore the MCL. Five months after that, she became the first American to win an Olympic judo gold medal.
Following the media tour and the parties, she returned to training with coach Jimmy Pedro in Massachusetts in early 2013. The knee pain returned, too.
“It would bug me, bug me, bug me,” daily, recalled Harrison as she sat in the lobby of the New York Athletic Club overlooking Central Park last week.
Until that spring day, when she fell, relented and saw Boston Celtics team physician Dr. Brian McKeon. Harrison found that a ligament smaller than her MCL was actually torn instead. And her knee had been subluxing, basically dislocating in and out for a year without her knowledge.
“I had a pothole in my knee,” she said.
Harrison underwent reconstructive knee surgery in June 2013, knowing it would keep her out of competition for a year, if she decided to continue with the sport.
What is wrong with me, Harrison thought to herself. Why do I keep putting myself through this? I have everything that I want. A World Championship. An Olympic title.
“But judo is sort of the love of my life,” the 24-year-old reasoned.
At the Olympics, Harrison leaped after the gold-medal match into the arms of fiance Aaron Handy, with whom several years ago she confided her story of being sexually abused by a former coach as a teen. Harrison and Handy have since parted ways.
Harrison talked going into London of retiring if she won gold. She wanted to become a firefighter.
But now, motivated by the surgery setback, Harrison is making what will likely be her final Olympic run. She said she can join judo legends with a victory in Rio de Janeiro next summer. She may have to go through one of the host nation’s biggest Olympic stars to do it.
“When you’re a fighter, it’s just sort of in you,” Harrison said. “Someone breaking my leg in half and putting it back together is definitely a challenge.”
“The comeback has started. #Day1,” was posted on Harrison’s Instagram following the surgery.
She spent six weeks in a straight leg brace. Her apartment had stairs, so she stayed with Pedro’s father for the first two months because she could barely walk.
“You eat and watch Netflix,” she said. “A lot of Netflix.”
Harrison also took Harvard Extension classes. One was in creative writing, Introduction to Memoir, which sparked her to restart work on her own book, with Dave Wedge, who co-wrote an account of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings that is reportedly the basis of an in-the-works film.
Harrison was back on the mat training in early 2014 but struggled to regain knee strength.
“A lot of crying, a lot of pain,” Pedro said. “She’s always cried, right? I think she cried more out of frustration that after her knee injury that she may never be healthy again, as a young girl who just wishes she could compete at 100 percent.”
The 2014 World Championships in Chelyabinsk, Russia, marked her fifth competition since returning from the surgery.
“She wasn’t ready,” Pedro said.
Harrison reached the 78-kilogram semifinals, relying on her instincts, mental strength and the gold-medal confidence of knowing she could beat anybody on her best day.
She drew Brazilian Mayra Aguiar in the semifinals. The two have a history.
Harrison defeated Aguiar in the final to win her only World Championship in 2010. She beat Aguiar again in the London Olympic semifinals, what Pedro called the toughest match of that tournament, since Aguiar was ranked No. 1.
This time in Chelyabinsk, Aguiar put Harrison away en route to a World Championship. The Brazilian’s loudly yelling coach was kicked out mid-match by the referee.
Harrison came away disappointed with bronze and a career head-to-head with Aguiar split at 6-6, which Harrison was reminded of during a late January trip to Brazil.
Local media sat them down for a TV show where they watched that Worlds match together and conversed about it.
Aguiar speaks English. She will be one of Brazil’s most hyped athletes at the Rio Games, given the nation has won three gold medals combined across all sports at each of the last two Summer Olympics.
Harrison saw Aguiar’s face on a bus during the Brazil trip and estimated one million children participate in judo in the nation.
Pedro would like as much pressure on Aguiar as possible going into the Olympics. And as little on Harrison’s shoulders.
“I’d rather [Harrison] take a silver or bronze again at this [year’s] Worlds rather than win it,” Pedro said of the Astana, Kazakhstan, competition coming in August. “Mentally, [World champions] go into the Olympics defending your title as opposed to taking it from others.”
Harrison won three straight competitions in December in Tokyo, February in Düsseldorf, Germany, and March in Tbilisi, Georgia.
“Technically, she’s still not where she was going into London,” Pedro said. “But she’s more experienced, more poised as a fighter, more confident. She knows she’s one of the best girls in the world now, whereas before there was a question.”
But Aguiar, who is one year younger, was not at any of those tournaments won by Harrison. And she, like Harrison, underwent surgeries after the London Olympics — shoulder, elbow and knee for the Brazilian.
At Rio 2016, Harrison could become the first non-Asian woman to successfully defend an Olympic judo title.
“Maybe I really could be one of the greatest of all time,” she said. “Who doesn’t want to be a legend, right?”
She will be 26 years old in 2016 and, probably she said, finish her judo career in Rio. Her only reason for continuing would be for the setting of the 2020 Olympics — Tokyo. Japan created judo, and her World Championship in 2010 was won there.
“It would be like winning the World Series here,” Harrison said. “But I’ll be almost 30 years old. I don’t know if my body will be able to handle another four years.”
Rio 2016 Olympics day-by-day events to watch
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NBC Sports and Peacock combine to air live coverage of the 2022-23 Alpine skiing season, including races on the World Cup, which starts this weekend.
Coverage begins with the traditional season-opening giant slaloms in Soelden, Austria, this Saturday and Sunday, streaming live on Peacock.
The first of four stops in the U.S. — the most in 26 years — is Thanksgiving weekend with a women’s giant slalom and slalom in Killington, Vermont. The men’s tour visits Beaver Creek, Colorado the following week, as well as Palisades Tahoe, California, and Aspen, Colorado after worlds in Courchevel and Meribel, France.
NBC Sports platforms will broadcast all four U.S. stops in the Alpine World Cup season, plus four more World Cups in other ski and snowboard disciplines. All Alpine World Cups in Austria will stream live on Peacock.
Mikaela Shiffrin, who last year won her fourth World Cup overall title, is the headliner. Shiffrin, who has 74 career World Cup race victories, will try to close the gap on the only Alpine skiers with more: Lindsey Vonn (82) and Ingemar Stenmark (86). Shiffrin won an average of five times per season the last three years and is hopeful of racing more often this season.
On the men’s side, 25-year-old Swiss Marco Odermatt returns after becoming the youngest man to win the overall, the biggest annual prize in ski racing, since Marcel Hirscher won the second of his record eight in a row in 2013.
2022-23 Alpine Skiing World Cup Broadcast Schedule
Schedule will be added to as the season progresses. All NBC Sports TV coverage also streams live on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app.
*Delayed broadcast.
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Olympic gold medalist Alex Hall headlines the U.S. Grand Prix at Copper Mountain, Colorado, airing on NBC Sports and Peacock this weekend.
For some skiers and snowboarders, it’s their first competition since the Olympics in February.
The first finals are Friday — men’s and women’s snowboard halfpipe and ski big air. The halfpipe landscape changed with Shaun White‘s retirement and Chloe Kim‘s break from competition this year.
Without them, two-time Olympic medalist Scotty James of Australia leads the men’s field that also includes U.S. Olympians Taylor Gold and Chase Josey. Japan’s Ayumu Hirano, the reigning Olympic champion, didn’t enter after competing in his national skateboarding championships last month.
Spain’s Queralt Castellet, who took silver behind Kim at the Olympics, is in Friday’s women’s final along with U.S. Olympian Maddie Mastro.
Friday’s men’s ski big air final includes two reigning Olympic champions: Hall, who won slopestyle gold in February, and Norwegian Birk Ruud, who prevailed in ski big air’s Olympic debut.
The women’s ski big air final includes Olympic silver and bronze medalists Tess Ledeux of France and Mathilde Gremaud of Switzerland. Eileen Gu, the Olympic gold medalist from China, did not enter Copper but has been training while balancing Stanford freshman classes.
U.S. Grand Prix Broadcast Schedule
*Delayed broadcasts. All coverage also streams on NBCSports.com/live and the NBC Sports app for subscribers.
Two-time Olympic medalist Alex Ferreira reached Saturday’s men’s ski halfpipe final, which will not include two-time Olympic champion David Wise, who was eliminated in qualifying. New Zealand’s Nico Porteous, the reigning Olympic gold medalist, is expected to be out until 2023 after offseason knee surgery.
The women’s ski halfpipe final, also Saturday, includes Olympic bronze medalist Rachael Karker of Canada, plus U.S. Olympians Brita Sigourney, Hanna Faulhaber and Carly Margulies. Gu won this event at the Olympics.
U.S. Olympian Chris Corning made Saturday’s snowboard big air final. None of the reigning Olympic big air medalists entered.
Julia Marino, who took slopestyle silver at the Olympics, is in the women’s big air final. Anna Gasser of Austria, who won the first two Olympic big air titles, did not enter Copper.
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