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By JOE HENDERSON jhenderson@tampatrib.com
Published: Aug 1, 2004

Patricia Miranda was curious and adventurous as she grew up near San Jose, Calif. It was understandable.
Her parents are political refugees from Brazil who fled to Canada and later to the United States, where her father finished medical school and set up a clinic to aid Portugese immigrants. Patricia was blessed with the family's keen intellect and drive, and was unafraid to strike out on her own.

So, she became a wrestler.

Forget the stereotype of women and wrestling: Patricia Miranda, 24, couldn't be further removed from that. She views wrestling in the classic sense, a challenge of mind and body that pushes her limits to places she never dreamed she could go.

Women's wrestling has been added to the Olympics this year for the first time, and she'll head to Athens as the U.S. national champion at 48 kilograms (105.5 pounds), hopeful of a medal but not necessarily among the favorites.

Nothing could be more irrelevant, however, than the question of whether she scores gold, silver, bronze or none of the above. She is an extraordinary woman for whom the world is a constantly unfolding miracle and challenge.

``My real goal, if you put it down in medals like the Olympic gold, is to be proud of myself. Proud of how I left it all out there, committing to something and training like no one has ever trained,'' she said.

``Inherent in that is that I do hope there will be other people who are proud to see that in their country. I want that, but I don't depend on it. The sport has given me so much.''

At this point, you expect to hear music welling up in the background and see credits rolling on the screen, for her story sounds like something out of central casting.

She has an undergraduate degree in economics from Stanford and a master's in international policy. She has a spot at Yale Law School waiting after the Olympics.

She wrestled four years on the Stanford men's team and didn't win until her senior year at a tournament in Nevada.

``Four years of ... losing. It was something I didn't really think about at the time. You can look at it as something painful, or something that strengthens you,'' she said.

``It's funny, people ask me now if I ever know what it is to lose. Try four years of never winning.''

She became fascinated with wrestling after attending an eighth-grade wrestling class. He father was adamant: Her fixation with wrestling was a waste of time and material. He'd call the school and threaten to sue if she was allowed to wrestle. He'd show up at tournaments and scratch her.

``It was really ugly in the beginning,'' she said.

Admittedly an indifferent student then, she promised to make straight A's if he'd let her participate. Anything less would be grounds to remove her from the team.

``I was in that phase where I wore all black, had headphones on all the time, didn't talk to anybody. I make a C, D ... who cares? I wasn't very into school,'' she said.

``But what I apply myself to is a reflection of me. So I stayed up that extra hour, I understood that math problem. It is all part of the same thing.''

She endured the inevitable taunts from opponents in high school, and sometimes she was reduced to tears. There was no question about quitting, however.

``I never considered myself an athlete. The drive to be an athlete was really intellectual at the beginning. I was really dumbfounded at how bad I was at wrestling. I'd get the adrenaline surge, start breathing, and then I'd get so nervous I couldn't even move,'' she said.

``I'd write about it in my training log, and it was almost like doing chemistry. How come I'm so bad?''

Along the way, she found answers. And she found that perfect marriage of intellect and sport.

``It's like when you see a car wreck. Are you the one's who freaking out? Are you the one who gives help? It's one of those moments where you get to say, `Hey, who am I deep down?' For me, wrestling provides that. When it gets hard, are you going to run or are you going to fight? Mental toughness is something that's trainable,'' she said.

``In the moment, you're the one who feels privileged. When you're training, you're dripping sweat, you've got a black eye, and you've got that burning in your lungs. But you love it. You love the fact you get to push yourself that far. You love the fact you get to see how good you can be at something you love to do.''

That life of challenge won't end when she leaves the mat for the final time in Athens. After she earns her law degree from Yale, she might pursue a career in international arbitration at the United Nations.

``I like helping people solve their problems,'' she said.

But she'll never forget what wrestling gave her. How it forced her to face the person she was, and change into the person she is.

``One quote I love is that anybody can sing in the shower. It's about whether you can do it when everybody's watching,'' she said. ``Wrestling is more of a raw, grinding thing - you can make plenty of mistakes and still come out on top.

``But in order to be the best of the best, there's a point in the match where you have to dig deep. You remember that one sprint workout that just killed you. You were scared to death that you wouldn't measure up, but you reached down deep and pulled it out.''

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Christine Nordhagen-Veirling

Christine is the kind of person that you immediately gravitate towards. She's down to earth, cheerful, funny and has the kind of zest for life that's contagious. We first met Christine while filming the inaugural Women Warriors television series in 2001 – 2002 and she left a lasting impression.

Christine is one of five children and grew up on her family's farm in Valhalla, about an hour north of Grande Prairie, Alberta. She was known to grapple with the neighbourhood boys and her slo-pitch team-mates growing up, but didn't discover competitive wrestling until the age of 20 while studying for her education degree at the University of Alberta.

Assuming she might have to teach wrestling as part of her future physical education classes, she enrolled in a six-week course. Her instructor quickly spotted her potential, and urged her to stay involved with the sport. At the time, women's wrestling was just on the verge of being introduced at the national level and seeing an opportunity, Christine began training with the University of Alberta team as its only female member. Those early days on the mat were sometimes tough. Some of the guys refused to wrestle with her, and others were more aggressive than they needed to be, but ever the positive thinker, Christine told us she knew she'd eventually prove herself and so she stuck to it.

When in 1992, women's wrestling was included at the Canadian championships, Christine took the competition by storm and has never looked back. She's been a dominating force in the world of women's wresting ever since and has won 10 Canadian Championships and six World Championship titles in only 12 years.

In 1997, wrestling's world governing body named her as the top international female. That same year, she was inducted into the Canadian Wrestling Hall of Fame and was also honoured with a "Breakthrough Award" by the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women In Sport. With that kind of record it seemed as though she had accomplished everything possible in her sport. Her hamlet of Valhalla even put up a sign in her honour reading: "Home of World Champion Wrestler Christine Nordhagen".
Then in 2001 came the announcement that Christine had been waiting for her entire career. She'd been just looking forward to a "normal" life as a teacher and starting a family with her coach and husband Leigh (a Greco-Roman national wrestling champion), when she learned that women would finally be allowed to compete in the Athens Olympics. But at the age of 30 and in what some critics would argue was the "twilight" stage of her career – could her body hold out another three years? Her spirit definitely could. Even though she missed almost all of the 2002-03 season due to nagging knee problems, she persevered and came back strong, qualifying in March 2004 for a spot on the Olympic team.

In Athens she'll have 11 women competing against her in the 72-kg weight class, but says she's confident as she's beaten each of the strongest competitors in previous matches.

"I'm a better person because of my sport," she told us often while filming, and it's safe to say that as a result of her pioneering determination – that's a sentiment that definitely goes both ways.

As a result of her accomplishments, her role as a pioneering force in her sport, her ongoing work with programs that inspire teen self-esteem and athletic excellence, and of course her upcoming debut at the Olympic Games, womanwarriors.ca wanted Christine to receive our inaugural sponsorship grant, a small boost that will hopefully help her along her journey to Athens.

Be sure to check our homepage during the Games as we follow Christine's progress.

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Teen has grown up wrestling
Mooresville student takes her talents to national tournament and places fifth

By Mark Ambrogi
mark.ambrogi@indystar.com
August 7, 2004

Ashleigh Lybarger (above, at an exhibition in Indiana) competed at the Junior National Championships in Fargo, N.D., last weekend. She has wrestled her brothers for years. -- Photo provided by Ashleigh Lybarger

For Ashleigh Lybarger, wrestling comes naturally.

After all, she has wrestled with older brothers, Eric and Ryan, ever since she can remember.

"I just got into it," she said, "and I never gave it up."

Lybarger, a Mooresville High School sophomore, placed fifth last weekend in the 150-pound class of the women's juniors (high school-aged) class in the Junior National Championships freestyle tourney in Fargo, N.D.

Mary Friedt, the Indiana juniors women's coach, said Lybarger, 16, is the first Indiana girl to earn All-American honors at nationals. The top eight wrestlers in the weight class are considered All-Americans.

"She really worked to cut weight both nights, but she got the job done," Friedt said.

Friedt served as the coach for the three girls who made the trip. She is a coach with the Decatur Wrestling Club, which is based at Bellmont High School, traditionally a wresting power.

Lybarger qualified for the nationals by default, because no other Indiana girl competed in her weight class at the state meet.

Lybarger had never wrestled another girl in an official match until the national tourney. She had been wrestling against boys since she was young.

Wrestling against other girls wasn't much different, Lybarger said.

"It was about the same because there were a lot of good girls there," she said. "I want to go again (to the national meet) and see if I can do better."

Her brother Ryan is a junior at Mooresville and a varsity wrestler. Brother Eric finished fourth at 171 pounds in the state meet as a senior in 2003.

"It's awesome she's still wrestles because she does play soccer and basketball," Ryan said. "She's gone beyond what I expected."

Lybarger's father, Joe, has served as her personal coach.

"She got it (wrestling knowledge) through osmosis with her family so involved," Friedt said. "She's been going to matches since she was a tiny kid."

Although Lybarger enjoys wrestling, it's not her main sport. She prefers soccer and basketball, and plays for Mooresville in those sports.

While those sports involve different skills, Lybarger said the endurance training she does for wrestling helps her in soccer.

Lybarger wrestled in sixth grade, but gave it up in the seventh when she had to choose between wrestling and basketball.

In the summer, she works out with a club made up of Mooresville High School wrestlers. Lybarger said she is probably accepted more among wrestlers now than when she was younger.

She said her brothers smoothed the way for her with other wrestlers.

"They're supportive," she said.

Lybarger said her girlfriends don't question her desire to wrestle.

"They know I've always done it," she said. "They were really happy when they heard how I did at nationals."

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Side by side again First-time Olympic coaches are longtime friends

Saturday, August 7, 2004
BY ROB HOFFMAN
News Sports Reporter

Zeke Jones pauses for a moment.

"This story is not going to be all about her beating me up?" he asked carefully.

No, it isn't.

But we'll get to that.

For now, this story is about what will happen next Saturday. That will be the day Huron High School graduates Jones, 37, and Tricia McNaughton Saunders, 38, will walk into Athens' Olympic Stadium as coaches for the United States wrestling team.

The honor of going to the games is somewhat familiar to Jones, who won the silver medal in freestyle wrestling at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and has been present as a coach in each of the last two Olympiads.

But for McNaughton Saunders, this is a whole new world.

A whole new world that opened up to her, thanks in no small part to Jones, her childhood friend and former wrestling partner.

Let's start at the beginning. Jones and Tricia McNaughton grew up within five blocks of each other in the Carpenter School neighborhood of Pittsfield Township. Born into a wrestling-mad family, McNaughton competed against boys from the age of 5. Jones, a good friend of her brother Andrew and a teammate on the Warriors Wrestling Club, often would practice against her. And McNaughton, who was nine months older than Jones, would beat him.

Again and again.

"From the ages of 5 to 12, she was a terror," said Jones, who, by his count, lost 20 straight times to his friend before he finally snared two straight victories toward the end of their training days. "No boys wanted to lose to a girl. But she wasn't a girl. She was my friend."

Not everyone felt that way.

As the lone girl competing against boys, McNaughton sometimes had to go to court to be allowed to participate in meets. (Meets that, by the way, she would frequently win). She would watch parents berate and even physically punish boys whom she had pinned, simply because they had lost to a girl.

But by 1989, that was ancient history.

Simply put, when she turned 12, there was no one else for McNaugton to compete against - certainly no girls and no more boys, her usual opponents, because they had graduated to middle school and high school wrestling. "The door was shut pretty tight," she said. So McNaughton competed in gymnastics at Huron. And she went to the University of Wisconsin, where she pursued a degree in bacteriology.

The trailblazer for women's wrestling had left the trail.

Then on that fateful day 15 years ago, she received a phone call from Jones. Having just gotten back from competing at the world wrestling championships in Switzerland, her childhood friend had some exciting news to share. "Hey, there was women's wrestling there," Jones told her.

Simple words. But simple words were all it took to put McNaughton back on the mat - and back on top, this time in the new world of female wrestling, which had staged its first world championships at that Swiss meet.

In 1992, the same year she married former Olympic wrestler Townsend Saunders and became Tricia McNaughton Saunders, she won the first of four world championships - part of a career that also includes 11 national championships (she never lost to a U.S. wrestler), 12 World Team Trial titles and the first-ever USA Wrestler Woman of the Year award, handed out in 1997.

Meanwhile, Jones built an impressive list of career accomplishments: Four World Cup gold medals, six national championships and No. 1 ranking in the United States for seven straight years. Plus, the crown in his headgear, a silver medal in 144.5 pounds at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. Six years ago, he became an assistant coach at West Virginia University.

Unlike Jones, McNaughton Saunders, however, never got a chance to pursue individual Olympic glory. Despite an assortment of injuries that almost forced her to retire in 1999, McNaughton Saunders kept wrestling because she was told that the addition of women's wrestling as an exhibition sport at the 2000 Sydney Olympics was a "done deal." It never happened.

Instead, the announcement came in 2001 and it was for the 2004 games. But, by then, it was too late. Realizing that her time on the mat was over, she retired.

"My injury status was through the roof," said McNaughton Saunders, who had 10 different orthopedic surgeries toward the end of her career. "I was starting to get injuries, like fractures, that just couldn't happen if I wanted to continue."

So McNaughton Saunders, whose husband had become an assistant wrestling coach at Arizona State, joined him on the sidelines. She became a member of the U.S. national women's team staff in 2001, serving as head coach of the 2003 Pan Am games team. Late last year, she and her husband were picked as assistant coaches to U.S. Olympic coach Terry Steiner.

McNaughton Saunders insists that she's not disappointed to be going to Athens as a coach, instead of as a competitor.

"Right now, there's nothing bittersweet about it at all," she said. "Would I like to have been there (competing) in 1992, 1996 or 2000? Yes. But not in 2004. I don't want to be doing that. I'm in a different place in my life right now."

Next week, that place will be Athens. For Jones, who is at his first Olympics as an official member of the U.S. coaching staff (Previously, he had gone to the Olympics to coach specific competitors), he knows it will be a magical two weeks for both himself and his former wrestling partner.

"There's nothing like the Olympic games," he said. "It's what the world focuses on every two years. In today's times, it's an amazing opportunity to represent your country."