HURLEY Kelley

General
RETIREMENT PLANS
She had intended to quit fencing after the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in order to go to medical school, but after the disappointment of her early exit, and seeing the Tokyo presentation at the closing ceremony, she set her sights on the 2020 Olympic Games. In 2017 she finished her master's degree in public health at the University of Texas and began concentrating full-time on fencing. "I just began to really think that I'm not ready to quit yet. I did want to take a break, but I felt there was so much more out there." Following the postponement of the 2020 Games, she brought forward her planned start date at Saint James School of Medicine from September 2020 to May that year. "I decided to start when I wasn't sure if the Olympics was happening. I didn't want to wait another year and then find out the Olympics had been cancelled. I'm not exactly a spring chicken and I would just be waiting around." (houstonchronicle.com, 24 Mar 2020; usafencing.com, 30 Mar 2021; washingtonpost.com, 20 April 2017; chron.com, 04 Apr 2017)

MEDICAL SCHOOL
In 2020 she began studying at the Anguilla-based Saint James School of Medicine, initially online due to the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure she was able to compete at international tournaments. "I didn't go to the island specifically because I thought, 'Well maybe if they have a tournament, I can't just hop over to China or wherever real fast from this little island'. So thank goodness online is an option." She says adjusting back to education was challenging. "Having a completely, 100% athletic career for the last decade with no school at all, it was really difficult in a lot of different ways just to turn my brain back on. I went from being super active and training to sitting down and not moving to studying, and studying, and studying. It was a rough first semester." (usafencing.com, 30 Mar 2021; usfencing.org, 27 Jul 2013; washingtonpost.com, 20 April 2017; chron.com, 04 Apr 2017)

FENCING SISTERS
She has a close relationship with younger sister Courtney, although it was not always that way growing up. "When I was maybe 15 or 16 and Courtney was 12 or 13, Courtney started to get good enough to beat me, and that was when tension sort of started. It was tough as a sister when your younger sister can finally beat you. But then, right around when I went to college, our competitiveness toward each other kind of stopped. And then once Courtney joined me in college, we actually became roommates, and I'd say that's when we started to get pretty close. Our competitive fire was no longer toward each other, it was more a team effort - Courtney and I versus everyone else. And I'd say since then, our relationship has been tighter than any other sibling relationship I've ever encountered." (cosmopolitan.com, 02 Jun 2016)