News Page

Schuyler woman's granddaughter just misses Olympics

By JESSICA ARSENAULT - Telegram Intern 6/19/04

SCHUYLER - A grandmother in Schuyler has good reason to be proud of her granddaughter, who missed qualifying for the 2004 Olympics by two points.

Virginia Shaw, of Route 5 in Schuyler, cannot help but beam with pride as she talks about her granddaughter's talent for wrestling.

Shaw's granddaughter, Stefenie Shaw, of Waterford, Conn., traveled to the Olympic wrestling try-outs in Indianapolis on a whim to gain experience. Unknown by the wrestling world, Stefenie surprised everyone, including herself, as she beat the 2003 World Championships bronze medalist to take fourth place.

Stefenie has been wrestling since she was 7, following in her father's footsteps. She has been wrestling in the USA Wrestling youth tournaments since she was 8. Young girl wrestlers were few and far between at that age, forcing Stefenie to compete with boys.

"I didn't like her wrestling the buys at first," said Virginia Shaw. "But she was good and I got used to it."

When she was in sixth grade, Stefenie won first place at the McGee Jr. High tournament, one of the largest tournaments in Connecticut at the time. It was not until she was 13 that Stefenie began wrestling other girls.

Earlier this spring, Stefenie took first place at the FILA Jr. National freestyle division, wrestling at 63 Kg (138.7 pounds). That win earned her the chance to represent the US in the Pan AM championships held in Guatemala in May. Because of her skilled performance and third place finish at that tournament, Stefenie was invited to the Olympic trials.

"I'm so proud of her," said Shaw. "She's a wonderful person all around. She's so polite. She loves animals and volunteers to help disabled children. She doesn't clean her room much though."

At the Olympic trials, Stefenie faced wrestlers older and much more experienced than she. Unranked and unknown, she broke a 2-2 tie with the third ranked Sally Roberts with one minute, 20 seconds left in the second period.

Though Stefenie did not make it to the Olympics this year, she is hopeful about 2008.

"I didn't think I was going to make it that far," Stefenie told a reporter for Connecticut's "The Day." "This is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. I was real disappointed that I couldn't step up and get the two points I needed but 2008 is still there."

Stefenie's grandmother, here in Schuyler, is confident that her granddaughter has what it takes.

"I just want everyone to know what an amazing person she is," said Shaw.

------------------------------------------------------

Stefenie Shaw Earns place on USA Pan AM Team

The FILA Junior Nationals, the FILA Cadet Nationals, the Women’s Body Bar Folkstyle Nationals, and the Senior Men’s Olympic Qualifier were all held at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, MN the weekend of March 13 - 14, 2004. The tournament is one of the better-attended major women’s freestyle tournaments. There are several age groups in both the folkstyle and freestyle divisions. Because this is an Olympic year and the US Olympic team candidates will be preparing for the Olympic Trials in Indianapolis in mid May, the USA Wrestling National Women’s Coach, Terry Steiner, decided that the champions of the Women’s FILA Junior Nationals competition would represent the USA in the Pan AM championships being held May 7, 8 and 9, 2004. The FILA Junior division includes both high school women and university age women.

Stefenie Shaw, a junior at Waterford High School in Waterford, CT, wrestled at 144 lb in the Women’s folkstyle division and at 63 Kg (138.75 lb, one of the women’s four Olympic weights) in the FILA Jr. National freestyle division. In the 2004 Body Bar folkstyle Nationals division Stefenie met one of the other top Jr. division female wrestlers, Vanessa Oswalt of Ohio, in the semi-finals and lost 2-0. In the freestyle competition Stefenie overcame three university women to win her pool for the right to again wrestle Vanessa Oswalt in the finals. In the freestyle competition, drawing motivation from her earlier loss, Stefenie worked to out score her opponent in the first period and then pin her in the second. Winning this tournament was important to Stefenie in two ways. First, she earned a place on the team that will represent the United States at the Pan AM championships in May. Secondly, it was the first time that Stefenie had placed ahead of other women that she has lost to in several tournaments in the past.

Stefenie has been wrestling USA Wrestling youth tournaments in junior high school and in high school since she was eight years old. In 6th grade Stefenie place first at the McGee Jr. High tournament, one of the largest in the state of CT at that time. In 7th and 8th grade she placed 2nd at the McGee tournament. It was not until 2001 when she was 13 years old that she began to wrestle other girls. There were surprises and lessons from those early women’s events. In the 3 years that Stefenie has been wrestling freestyle she previously placed 6th and 5th at the FILA Nationals. She has also placed 6th and 3rd at the USAW Wrestling Jr. Nationals in Fargo.

Stefenie has always been a “good” wrestler amongst her peers. One of the important things about her wrestling career has been the continual change in her peer groups. It began in youth wrestling, progressed through junior high school and high school. In the last few years it has really become the national USA Wrestling Junior women’s group. With this victory in the Women’s FILA Junior Nationals it has broadened into the university age group.

The next step in the progression of peer groups for Stefenie (seen in the picture on the right refereering) will be the national and international Senior Women’s division. The important thing, for Stefenie and for any aspiring women who want to become competitive wrestlers, is that it is “another step” in a progression. Over the years Stefenie has made an ongoing investment in the sport of wrestling. She has wrestled boys / men in junior high school, high school and open tournaments. Wrestling at 135 and 140 Lbs she has faced a significant challenge being on a high school team that wrestles all of the top 10 teams in the state.

Her first tournament in the women’s Senior division will be at the Brockport, Northeast Olympic Qualifier in mid April. To prepare for this challenge Stefenie is balancing her school work and working with the best freestyle coaches that she can, as many days a week as possible, to prepare for both Brockport and for the Pan AM championships. In early May she will travel to Guatamala to represent the USA in the Pan AM games against the best women from all over the Americas. Countries like Canada and Venezuela who have strong 63 Kg women have already completed their Olympic trials and will be sending their Olympic competitors. Stefenie will be spending the next six weeks maintaining her schoolwork and preparing for this great opportunity and challenge.

-------------------------------------------------

Wrestler's toughest fight against stereotypes
Law student Miranda pursuing gold in her sport’s Olympic debut

The Associated Press
Updated: 12:13 a.m. ET June 19, 2004INDIANAPOLIS -

When Patricia Miranda enters Yale Law School this fall, she plans to study conflict mediation. Understandably so, since she has already had plenty of it to mediate, much if it in her own household.

Miranda could become the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in wrestling, yet her career has been filled with far more setbacks, hurt feelings, defeats and, yes, conflicts than most elite athletes ever endure.

There were the fellow students who called her “a joke” for wrestling on the boys team at Saratoga (Calif.) High, and the father who so opposed her athletic career he nearly went to court to fight it.

There were the endless months of training with the Stanford University men’s team that left her with cuts, bruises and black eyes but no perceptible on-mat success. There were the whispers, the stares, the impolite questions from strangers who wondered what she thought she was accomplishing as a woman struggling in what has traditionally been a man’s sport.

Miranda’s answer: She simply wanted to compete in the sport she loved, gender be darned.

“Competing in high school and college, I never thought of myself as a female,” said Miranda, the 105½-pounder on the first U.S. Olympic women’s wrestling team. “In fact, I asked they take down all the mirrors so I couldn’t use it (being a female) as an excuse for why I didn’t wrestle well.”

That was quite often for an undersized female — she’s only 5 feet tall — competing against bigger, stronger males. It got even worse at Stanford, where she spent five seasons as little more than practice fodder at 125 pounds, 10 above her natural weight. She got into matches as a senior only after one wrestler was injured, another couldn’t make weight and a third had grade troubles.

Her record in college-only matches was 1-7, with the only victory by forfeit. She was 3-13 overall, beating a community college male wrestler and another woman in an open tournament.

Women’s wrestling really wasn’t a full-time option; only a half-dozen U.S. colleges sponsor the sport, none of them big-name schools. Also, she had promised father Jose Miranda, a Brazilian-born doctor who had long opposed her career, that she would get all A’s if he allowed her to wrestle. She kept the promise, graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s in international policy.

Deep down, what may have kept her going through all those miserable practices in which she was badly overmatched was the hope women’s wrestling would someday be a socially acceptable, Olympics-approved, for-real sport like gymnastics or swimming.

She got her wish two years ago when the sport was accepted into the Olympics. Finally, the two-time world silver medalist, World Cup champion and Pan-Am Games champion no longer has to worry about being one of the guys; it’s OK to be a wrestler who’s a woman.

“I wasn’t raised as an athlete, and didn’t follow a lot of sports when I was growing up, and I don’t know many other Olympic athletes,” said Miranda, who took up her sport in junior high because her best friends were boys who wrestled. “In fact, the Olympics never entered my mind until I was finishing college. ... I had more immediate goals.”

Now she has one goal: to walk off the mat Aug. 23 as the first women’s wrestling gold medalist. She is one of the favorites, having lost a 5-4 decision to three-time world champion Irini Merleni of the Ukraine in last year’s world championship finals in New York. Merleni trailed 3-1, but rallied to win a match that earned her the outstanding wrestler award.

The loss has motivated Miranda ever since.

“Athens is my redemption from New York,” the 25-year-old Miranda said. “Athens is my shot to be better.”

In a turnaround from most of her career, Miranda had a relatively easy road to Greece, defeating Clarissa Chun 6-3 and 10-0 in a best-of-three finals at the U.S. Olympic trials in Indianapolis last month. The other three trials finals were much closer.

“She’s a very physical wrestler, probably one of the strongest in the weight class,” Chun said of Miranda, whose best on-mat assets are her power, intensity and speed. “She’s an icon, she’s got a great story and I’m happy for her.”

No doubt it helped Miranda that she was cheered on by her sister, brother-in-law, two brothers and, yes, the wrestling-opposed father who once scratched her name off entry sheets so she couldn’t compete. At one point, he even explored a lawsuit against the school district for allowing her to wrestle.

Jose Miranda still doesn’t understand how wrestling is scored, but realizes how hard his daughter has worked despite the daunting obstacles he put in her path. He wasn’t opposed to athletics per se, but didn’t want his daughter to neglect her studies because of them.

As a result, his daughter has had little time for anything but wrestling and academics since her mother died when Patricia was 10. Initially, she said, her goal in life wasn’t to be a champion wrestler but rather become the governor of California.

Now, Miranda realizes what a gold medal would do — give women’s wrestling far more exposure than it ever had in the United States and possibly persuade other athletes to try the sport.

That’s why U.S. women’s national coach Terry Steiner has challenged his four-member team not only to medal in Athens, but to be role models for the American Olympic team and the sport.

“I have been given a large responsibility, and I want to carry the weight and represent my country the best I can,” Miranda said