Helen Maroulis had enough. She grabbed her phone, called her mom and said it: I’m retiring.
That was a year and a half ago. Maroulis, who in 2016 became the first U.S. woman to win an Olympic wrestling title, was by the end of 2017 one of the world’s dominant athletes not only in her sport, but also across all sports.
Life changed on Jan. 10, 2018. Maroulis suffered a head injury in a match in India. She spent most of 2018 and 2019 sidelined by concussions, shoulder surgery and post-traumatic stress disorder.