FORT CARSON, Colo. -- When Capt. Leigh Jaynes-Provisor stood on the mat in preparation for the 60-kilogram bronze medal match at the 2015 World Wrestling Championships Sept. 11, 2015, she admits feeling an enormous pressure. A loss would not only put an end to her hopes of earning a medal, but also dash her team's hopes of finishing on the podium.
When the final bell rang, Jaynes-Provisor celebrated with her teammates. Her victory by criteria points, vaulted the U.S. Women's wrestling team to a World Championship bronze medal.
"The fact that it happened on Sept. 11 is significant obviously, and, for me, it was even more special because of the circumstances leading up to this year," she said.
The 2014 competitive wrestling season had devolved into a huge downer for the 34-year-old wrestler. After giving birth to her daughter, Evelyn, in 2013, Jayne-Provisor struggled to regain her wrestling form.
"She lost every match she wrestled last year," said Capt. Nathaniel Garcia, U.S. World Class Athlete Program (WCAP) executive officer. "Despite just having a baby, she decided to continue chasing her Olympic wrestling dreams. But, after a disappointing 2014 season, she has shown the true nature what it is to be Army Strong."
Jaynes-Provisor started wrestling boys in high school and then helped start a women's wrestling team at her alma mater, Missouri Valley College, where she continued to compete while earning bachelor's and master's degrees. She also completed ROTC there and enlisted in the U.S. Army soon after.
"I've been wrestling for 16 years now," said the WCAP wrestler. "It's funny that I finally got one (world championship medal) after enduring perhaps the biggest physical struggle of my wrestling career."
This is Jaynes-Provisor's second go-round with WCAP. Back in 2008, she failed to make the U.S. Olympic team and was released from the program.
Following her departure from WCAP she decided to join her Reserve unit, the 5502nd Army Hospital in Aurora, but she caught the wrestling bug again soon after earning a promotion to captain and eventually rejoined WCAP. While training at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, she met Ben Provisor, an Olympic Greco-Roman wrestler. The pair married a short time later and Jaynes-Provisor thought things were moving along well with wrestling until she experienced a slight hiccup -- motherhood.
"During pregnancy your ligaments get looser," she said, "and, after Evelyn was born I continued nursing her for 10-and-a-half months. I was swimming and doing Pilates in an effort to stay in shape, but when I jumped on the scale early in 2014, I was afraid I might not ever wrestle again."
She admits struggling with everything her coaches asked her to do.
"I was getting yelled at a lot and I was underperforming, but my husband, Ben, was the person who kept me motivated," she said. "He kept reminding me of the goals I had set. So, I had to stick to my guns even when I was losing."
Her perseverance paid off in 2015. This season has turned out to be perhaps the best of her career.
"It's kind of funny that such success eluded me when I was single and had all this time to devote to training," she said. "Now, I'm 34, an age when athletes retire. My personal life is busier than ever and yet this is when I earn a World Championship medal.
Garcia said Jayne-Provisor is the first WCAP female wrestler to medal at a world championship competition since 2002 and that she is a favorite to qualify for the 2016 U.S. Olympic team.
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