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BOY WRESTLERS BEWARE: LAMBERT SISTERS HAVE ARRIVED ON THE SCENE
frances thrasher norge The Virginian-Pilot

CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER 7/18/04

Don't tell Marina and Sarah Lambert they're girls in a boys sport. The
sisters adamantly contend that they're just wrestlers.

They train like the boys, they work like the boys, and they compete
with the boys. They also win against the boys.
"We take it as a compliment when people ask us about it," Marina, 12,
said. "We're just athletes fighting other athletes. There's no difference to
us."

Marina, a seventh-grader at Indian River Middle, and Sarah, a 9-
year-old fourth-grader at Sparrow Road Intermediate, both hold several national
judo titles, and are making their way through the wrestling scene.

"Boys have got to wake up," said Melvin Lambert, Marina and Sarah's
dad. "Girls have arrived. Those girls that push themselves and try hard;
they can be competitive."

Marina admits that as her male opponents mature, puberty is taking its
toll. She's becoming more curvy, the boys more muscular. Many of her
opponents play football in the wrestling off-season and return to the mat more
buff and chiseled.

"She's training," Melvin said. "You can tell she's strong. She's not
trying to beat boys. She's not out for revenge. She's a competitor. We're not
about girls beating boys. My point is that they're able to compete against
anybody."

So far the girls are holding their own. Sarah won three national judo
titles last year - the U.S. Judo, U.S. Judo Federation and U.S. Judo Inc.
competitions. She finished seventh at 80 pounds in the Virginia
Challenge wrestling competition and was named an All- American.

Sarah took first in the Virginia State AAU wrestling tournament last
season, and finished second at the Granby Summer Sizzler at 80 pounds this
summer.

"They've done a lot," Melvin Lambert said. "I kind of keep them going.
A lot of kids are idle. But these girls keep going. I tell Marina that she's
done more in her 12 years than most people do athletically their entire
lives."

Marina returned last weekend from Chicago with a first-place finish in
the U.S. Judo Association Junior National Competition at the 145-pound
heavyweight division.

Last season Marina took first at the U.S. Judo Association Junior
National Competition, first at the Judo Inc. competition and second at the Judo
Federation.

She finished first at 140 pounds at the USA/Virginia Challenge Middle
School National Open Wrestling Competition and was named outstanding wrestler
for the event.

The judo competitions match the Lamberts with other females, while the
wrestling matches are open to both sexes.

Melvin signed his daughters up for judo to teach them self- defense.
Marina began when she was 3, Sarah when she turned 1.

The sisters train at three gyms for judo, in addition to wrestling for
the Kempsville Wrestling Club. Both are honor roll students.

They began wrestling last fall to condition for judo season. As luck
would have it, the girls took to wrestling, and concentrate about 80 percent
of their efforts on the mat.

"We like wrestling better," Sarah said. "There are more people to work
with."

Marina said she likes the team aspect of wrestling more than the
individuality associated with martial arts.

"In judo you're never on a team," she said. "With wrestling we have
members to hang out with. It's more of a team effort."

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Olympics: Wrestling fab four aiming for gold rush in Athens

Kyodo World News Service 07-26-2004

Japan will be pinning its hopes on a monumental gold rush when women's
wrestling makes its debut at the Athens Olympics.

With a team fueled by five-time world champion Kyoko Hamaguchi, along
with Saori Yoshida and siblings Chiharu and Kaori Icho, such aspirations are
anything but delusions of grandeur.

Probably the biggest challenge facing them will be the U.S. women's
team, which has vowed revenge after Japan embarrassed the Americans by
sweeping all Olympic weight categories except for the 48-kilogram class at the
2003 world championships in New York.

Japan believes it will be a deja vu like none other, except that
Chiharu Icho, who will wrestle at 48 kg, will aim to claim the missing link
from last year at the Athens competition on Aug. 22-23.

Hamaguchi, by far the most popular of the four and notorious for her
predator-like instincts, is the favorite to win the 72-kg weight class.

Her clearest rival will be two-time world silver medalist Toccara
Montgomery, an American she defeated for gold at the worlds.

Hamaguchi said she matured as a wrestler after placing third and fourth
at the world meets in 2000 and 2001, enabling her to bounce back with
world title wins in 2002 and 2003.

Chosen as the flag-bearer for Japan's Olympic delegation, Hamaguchi
will also have the enthusiastic backing of her father and coach Heigo
"Animal" Hamaguchi, a former pro wrestler who is known to cry out, "Put more
spirit into it!" to encourage his daughter.

The elder Hamaguchi will accompany the wrestling team to Athens as a
coach.

Chiharu, the elder of the Icho sisters, will likely face her toughest
challenge against American Patricia Miranda and Irina Melnik of
Ukraine, who won the 48 kg weight class at the 2003 worlds.

At 51 kg, Chiharu, who has a 40-2 record in international competitions
and won silver and gold at the 2002 and 2003 world championships,
respectively, has dropped down a weight class as the 51-kg category will not be
contested in Athens.

Chiharu, who attends Chukyo Women's University near Nagoya, booked her
ticket to Athens by defeating longtime rival and Japan Queens Cup
winner Makiko Sakamoto at the national invitational championships in April.

Kaori, a two-time defending world champion at 63 kg and the youngest of
the fab four at 20, is expected to go head-to-head in the gold medal match
against American Sara McMann.

Kaori beat McMann in a close decision in overtime to win the worlds
last year and the odds are that she will rain on the four-time U.S
titleholder's parade again in the Greek capital.

If ever there was someone who came close to actually eating, sleeping
and living wrestling, Yoshida, who will aim for gold at 55 kg, would be
such person.

A two-time world champion, Yoshida defeated American Tina George for
gold in both 2002 and 2003. Yoshida will now have to contend with surprise
package Tela O'Donnell, who won an Olympic berth over U.S. national champion
George.

"I wonder what kind of wrestler she is who can pin someone like
George," mused Yoshida after O'Donnell made the team. "I know it will be a tough
fight in Athens but I will aim to perform my best wrestling."

Perhaps O'Donnell is asking herself who is this woman Yoshida who has
never lost a match in 15 competitions outside Japan.

Aside from the hours spent toiling on the mat in training, the four
Japanese also took time out to steel their nerves under the chilly torrent of a
waterfall in Toyama Prefecture in central Japan.

The ritual is customarily carried out by ascetic Buddhist monks as a
religious austerity to seek out enlightenment. Rest assured -- nirvana
for these four shines the color of gold.

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Guide to the games; Rachel Dry; Katherine Hobson;

Katherine Hobson
U.S. News & World Report 08-09-2004

Wrestling

Americans Toccara Montgomery and Patricia Miranda are both medal
favorites in the Olympic debut of women's wrestling. On the men's side, Cael
Sanderson enters the Olympics on the heels of a perfect four-year NCAA record.
Rulon Gardner, who dethroned three-time Olympic champion Alexander Karelin of
Russia to win in Sydney, comes to Athens after four less-than-golden
years. He lost a toe to frostbite in 2002, was hurt in a motorcycle accident
this spring, and injured his wrist a few days later.

Hot shot: Miranda, 25, from Saratoga, Calif., started wrestling at age
12. "My mother had passed away a few years earlier, and I really wanted to
get to know myself, to do things that scared me," Miranda says. Elsewhere
on the list of difficult tasks: "Oh, I don't know, math." A Phi Beta Kappa
graduate of Stanford, the 105-pounder wrestled men in high school and college.
The spectators "always looked at me like I was about to die. Now people are
like 'Man, you're going to kick ass,' " she says. "And I'm like 'Thank God,
someone thinks I'm going to win.' " Miranda, who will enroll at Yale
Law School in the fall, still sees wrestling as a personal challenge. "I
love the chance to explore the outer limits of my potential," she says. "I
think there's a very good chance that the upper limit of my potential is good
enough to win a gold medal."

Competition: Irini Merleni of Ukraine, who defeated Miranda in the gold
medal match at the 2003 World Championships, is her biggest threat.

When to watch: Women's freestyle wrestling, August 22-23; men's
Greco-Roman gold medal matches, August 25-26; freestyle, August 28-29

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Against all odds
Former McDowell High wrestler took down gender barrier

SCOTT FOWLER 8.4.04

ATHENS 2004: This is Part 11 of a daily Observer series that previews
the Olympics in Athens, Greece, each day through Aug.13, the day of the
Summer Olympics' opening ceremonies. MORE PREVIEWS.

As a ninth-grader at McDowell High in Marion, N.C., Sara McMann opened
the door, walked into a high school classroom and felt the glares.

This was a meeting -- for the boys' wrestling team.

There was no girls' wrestling team.

And McMann wanted to compete.

So she steeled herself and sat down. She was new to the school and the
community, having just moved from Maryland. She knew no one.

"I was an absolute alien in there," McMann, now an Olympian, recalled
recently. "I found that out pretty quick."

The wrestling team's coach, Tim Hutchins, didn't tell her to get out.
But he didn't welcome her with open arms, either.

"I'll be the first to admit I wasn't a big fan of the whole idea,"
Hutchins said. "There was a lot of skepticism among the boys, and that went for
me as well. A girl? Wrestling? I had never even heard of such a thing."

They didn't kick her off the team. They didn't think it would be
necessary. She'd quit, wouldn't she? After getting pinned a few dozen times in
practice, that would be it.

"It was a hard experience," McMann said. "Every wrestler new coming in
has to prove themselves and pay some dues. And that was more difficult as a
girl. They thought I would quit when they made it hard. But I was there
to stay."

I was there to stay.

How many Olympic athletes said that to themselves at some point,
against huge odds?

All of them.

Within a month, Hutchins was her biggest supporter. She did everything
the coach told her to do. And more. She had had an older brother wrestle,
had gone to some of his practices and knew what the sport required.

McMann wasn't very good. Not at first. Not against boys. They were
naturally stronger, and she had yet to become the wrestler with the best
technique on the team, as she would be as a senior.

But she tried. And eventually, she won everyone over.

"The only reason she was doing it was she wanted to wrestle," Hutchins
said. "Not for attention or anything else. She became great friends with the
other guys on that team. That's why she was always able to be the only girl
in a room of 30 guys."

McMann wrestled for McDowell for four years and started the last two.
As a senior, she was one of the co-captains. She was the one entering
freestyle tournaments in the 125- or 130-pound classes every weekend, urging
teammates to come along. She wrestled for two conference championship teams at
McDowell, dressing alone in the women's basketball locker room.

As a senior, in her best season, she went 15-13, made honorable mention
all-conference, and only was pinned once.

That was against the boys, of course.

But the newest Olympic sport is women's freestyle wrestling.

For McMann, it's perfect.

It turns out that if you're a girl who can win half the time wrestling
boys from the N.C. mountains that you can be one of the best female
wrestlers in the world. McMann certainly is. In the 138.75-pound weight class in
Athens, Greece, she will be one of the medal favorites.

Neither McMann, 23, nor her family lives in Marion anymore. She moved
to Pennsylvania to go to Lockhaven University for college (wrestling
against the men in practice, but not in actual meets) and now lives in Colorado
Springs, Colo., because of its Olympic training center. Her family
lives in Pennsylvania.

"But my coach and some of my best friends still live in Marion," McMann
said. "I ended up loving it there. It was a culture shock at first, but
Marion really grew on me."

Hutchins went out to see McMann compete in the Olympic Trials in May,
and she dominated her weight class and won her Olympic spot. The coach
figured he would just watch Sara on television like everyone else he knew.

But one of the civic clubs in Marion decided to raise money for
Hutchins to go to Greece. Another club joined in. Hutchins found some cheap
housing. Suddenly, he's going to watch his former wrestler compete in Greece.

"Sara had a lot of things you just can't teach," Hutchins said. "I
tried to help her on her technique, but the dedication, the honesty, the
enthusiasm -- she had all that already."

And she didn't walk out of the meeting room at McDowell when it would
have been so easy to do so.

Don't forget that the next time you are about to open a door, unsure of
what's on the other side.

Olympic notebook

• Olympic ticket sales are picking up after a slow start, but Athens
organizers said Tuesday that more than half the seats still are
available.Just 10 days before the opening ceremony, only 2.2 million of
the 5.2 million tickets have been bought. About 38,000 tickets were sold
Monday, the most for one day, officials said. An average of 4,000 tickets were
sold each day in June and July.

• Greek Premier Costas Caramanlis toured the main Olympic complex and
insisted Athens was ready to host the Games after years of construction
delays.

"We are fully prepared and that is why we are optimistic," Caramanlis
said.