Ronda Rousey didn’t live an easy childhood and faced many hardships growing up. She was born on February 1, 1987 in California. Raised in Riverside, her childhood was plagued with a series of misfortunes beginning with issues she endured from birth. When born to her parents AnnMaria De Mars and Ron Rousey, she experienced a brush with death as her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck causing not enough oxygen to reach her brain. This led to a neurological disorder called apraxia, which affected her up until the age of six, making her unable to communicate verbally. Ronda struggled in school during elementary and throughout high school because of this, and was homeschooled off and on regularly.
In 1995, at the age of eight, Ronda’s father …show more content…
AnnMaria began teaching her the basic foundations of JuJitsu when she was eleven and she quickly developed a knack for the sport. She continued to train with her mother, and after dropping out of highschool (later returning to earn her G.E.D) she earned the title of the youngest American fighter to be the number one ranking in the women’s half-middleweight division at the age of sixteen.
When Rousey turned seventeen she qualified to enter into the 2004 Olympic Games. Her attempt was abortive and she lost the medal to Driulis González (Cuba) and Urška Žolnir (Slovenia); the two bronze medalists of the 2004 Judo Summer Olympics. That same year however, she went on to collect gold in both the World Junior Championship and Pan American Judo Championship.
She continued to defend her status as the gold medalist of the Pan American Judo Championship in 2006, while still going on to develop her career even further. In April of that year, she won a gold medal at the Birmingham World Cup, becoming the first female winner from the U.S. in ten years to succeed at taking the A-level gold medal, scoring