Olympics: She overcame childhood sex abuse to become first ever American judo champion

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All Olympic champions have tales of overcoming hardships and challenges, but few can compare to that of Kayla Harrison's.

She started the sport at six at the encouragement of her mother, who was a keen judo fighter.

When she was eight, Daniel Doyle, who became a trusted family friend, started to coach the Middletown, Ohio native. But when she was 13, he took advantage of that trust and proceeded to sexually abuse her for the next three years.

It only ended when she confided in a judo friend Aaron Handy - now her fiance - who told her mother who contacted police.

Bitter, angry and even suicidal, her family moved her hundreds of miles from home to Boston to live and train with Jimmy Pedro, a two-time Olympic judo bronze medallist for the US himself, a step she said saved her life.

"We've taken care of her since she was 16-years-old and sort of given her everything in life," an emotional Pedro told Reuters.

"Making her a champion, putting food on her table, building her back up emotionally and psychologically, physically and technically in the sport of judo, to play that kind of role and have that person give back in so many other ways, it's a truly unique and special relationship.

"We've created history. I told Kayla today was her destiny. It was meant to be. It's a special, special moment."

Under Pedro's guidance she became the first American woman to win a world judo championship in 26 years in 2010 and the first US world champion since Pedro himself in 1999.

US judo team mate Nick Delpopolo, who reached the quarter-finals of the -73kg category and is very close to Harrison, said it was just reward for everything she'd been through and all her hard work since.

"No one deserves it more than her," Delpopolo told Reuters.

"You hear these stories about hardships and overcoming them. But no one, deserves it more than Kayla, no one.

"She's determined, she's driven, she's focused. Every day matters to her and that's why she is at the top of the podium. She doesn't take anything for granted."

For Harrison herself, she hopes that her success will be an inspiration to others, whilst also putting US judo on the map.

"Never give up on your dreams, if I can do it anybody can do it," she said when asked what she hoped her legacy would be.