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Miranda takes bronze medal

She's stood the test of time

Making it to the mat in Athens

This year's Olympics is a chauvinist's nightmare

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Dad goes berserk after daughter's defeat

8/24/04

The father of Japanese female wrestler Kyoko Hamaguchi had to be restrained by officials after venting his fury at her controversial defeat at the Athens Olympics.

Former professional wrestler "Animal" Hamaguchi tried to leap from the stands to protest when Chinese opponent Wang Xu was awarded victory in the 72 kg semi-final.

Dressed in a rising sun T-shirt, he yelled: "That's impossible. It's not on. They've made a mistake."

Security guards moved in to restore order as the 56-year-old man then became embroiled in an angry exchange with his wife, who was doing her best to calm him down.

Hamaguchi, who carried the Japanese flag at the opening ceremony in Athens, was favourite to win the heavyweight gold.

She was visibly upset with the scoring, believing she should have received points for an attacking move which would have given her a clear advantage with the clock ticking down.

Instead, points were awarded to Wang for a caution against Hamaguchi and the Chinese woman won the bout 6-4.

The Japanese did not lodge a protest and the officials were not called on to use the video replay, as they can in the case of a dispute.

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Murdered brother would have been proud of sister winning first silver medal in new Olympic event
American McMann wrestles with life

By JEROME SOLOMON 8/24/04
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

ATHENS, GREECE - If you ask Sara McMann, she'll tell you her brother Jason was here ... you just couldn't see him.

He was supposed to be here. After all, Sara wouldn't be here were it not for him.

On the most important night of Sara's life, the most meaningful person in her life couldn't have been anyplace else.

He was here, yelling with the small American contingent at Ano Liossia Olympic Hall, when Sara took a one-point lead a little over two minutes into the championship match.

He was here, jumping up and down and waving a U.S. flag, when Sara upped her advantage to 2-0 near the end of the first of two periods.

And he beamed with pride and shed tears as Sara wept on the podium with the Olympic silver medal around her neck, having lost the match of her life.

A dream almost realized.

Kaori Icho of Japan became the first female gold medalist in Olympic women's wrestling history at 138 1/2 pounds by beating McMann in a thrilling contest Monday night. Icho scored the final three points of the match — all in the last two minutes of regulation — including the clincher with only 22 seconds remaining.

All McMann wanted to do was cry. So she did.

"I don't think there's anything more painful in the world," McMann said as she broke down during the post-match news conference. "After it was over, I just felt like I did everything I could, worked as hard as I could. It just wasn't good enough."

Shortly thereafter, she thought of other painful moments in her life — one in particular — and reflected that hurt lessens as time passes.

Jason McMann disappeared on Jan. 22, 1999. Three months later, his body was found in a heavily wooded area outside Lock Haven, Pa. Police later determined he was beaten unconscious and left there to die. He was 21 years old.

"Time eases the pain," McMann said. "It only comforts me that my brother would be proud of me either way."

That isn't the agony of defeat. It's the agony of life.

Three years after the murder, the TV show America's Most Wanted helped turn up suspects. Fabian Smart, a former football player at Lock Haven University, where Sara became a wrestler after her brother's death, has been charged with the slaying and is scheduled to go to trial Sept. 13. Three others allegedly involved in the dumping of the body are slated to testify against Smart.

A few days ago, McMann talked about returning home to face her older brother's killers.

But she preferred to talk about her hopes of winning a gold medal. Or about her brother, who started her in wrestling.

"I was his 5-year-old wrestling dummy," she said.

She would learn how to fight back and became the first American to advance to an Olympic gold-medal match in women's wrestling, the latest addition to the Games.

American Patricia Miranda (bronze in the 105 1/2 -pound weight class) actually claimed the first medal ever awarded to a female wrestler with her 12-4 win over Angelique Berthenet. Japan claimed two of the four gold medals awarded, with Saori Yoshida taking the title at 121 pounds. China's Wang Xu (158 1/2 pounds) and Ukraine's Irini Merleni (105 1/2 pounds) won the other two.

Merleni had one of the more emotional reactions of the Games. She leaped into the referee's arms after being awarded the win by his decision following an overtime tie.

Her tears of joy contrasted with McMann's painful expressiveness.

"Wrestling is like life," U.S. coach Terry Steiner said. "There are good times and bad times. Sometimes you don't know what to feel. I'm sure five years from now (she'll) be happy to have a medal hanging from her mantle."

Time eases the pain.

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Ukrainian gets emotional in wrestling victory

By ANN TATKO 8/24/04

Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)

ATHENS - A 4-foot-11 Ukrainian with pigtails gave women's wrestling an Olympic debut that touched even one of the women she beat.

Irini Merleni had no idea who won when her 105.5-pound match against Japan's Chiharu Icho ended in a 1-1 tie Monday. She glanced at the scoreboard and waited until referee Georgios Chamakos raised her arm, declaring her the winner. A tiebreaker had given her the win because she had no passivity calls.

Merleni screamed hysterically as she collapsed to her knees. Grasping Chamakos' arm, she pulled herself up and leapt into his arms.

Chamakos returned the embrace for a moment, then looked sheepishly toward the mat chairman with both arms extended and Merleni still wrapped around him, Yogi Berra style.

When her feet finally touched the mat again, Merleni ran around it as if unsure where to go next. She stopped every few seconds and screamed again, jumping around as if someone had uncorked a champagne bottle several times over.

She cried on the medal stand. The bouquet of flowers in her hands shook visibly. And she hugged the medal presenter, international wrestling federation president Raphael Martinetti, when he tried to shake her hand.

Everyone who came near her seemed in danger of being hugged.

``Obviously, I was surprised, happy, overwhelmed when my hand was raised,'' Merleni said through a translator. ``It's difficult for me to explain this. The Olympic Games are the utmost peak of my career. It is hard to believe after so many years of training, I have achieved this.''

Such raw emotion wasn't lost on American Patricia Miranda.

Earlier in the day, Merleni had manhandled Miranda in the semifinal match, 9-0. That dropped Miranda, a two-time world silver medallist, into the bronze-medal match, where she defeated France's Angelique Berthenet 12-4.

Her U.S. teammate Sara McMann won silver at 138.75 pounds.

``When you win the gold medal, you should feel free to express your emotions any way you choose,'' Miranda said. ``It was quite moving. If I can get past myself and not be selfish, I can see that.''

The first Olympic medal in women's wrestling went around Miranda's neck, but she was hoping for the third. She came to Athens to win gold. Losing to Merleni, a three-time world champion, was little consolation.

Yet, from the start of this Olympic odyssey, Miranda has stood for more than herself. She became one of the most recognizable faces in women's wrestling.

Whatever her sport needed, she did, from interviews and photo shoots to a diplomatic smile Monday in the wake of her disappointment.

Even she could admit after the fact that women's wrestling achieved a defining moment in its first Olympic gold medal match. And because it came in the Olympics, a worldwide television audience had a chance to witness it.

``They got to see a great finals match, with the sweat running and the pain on the faces, going to the last second, not knowing who's going to win,'' Miranda said. ``That's what sport is. That's the tragedy and triumph that was communicated there.''

The tragedy was visibly stark, too.

Icho was devastated by the loss, saying she felt no joy, just regret. ``For me, the finals ended up silver instead of gold because I lacked courage,'' she said.

McMann, who lost 3-2 to Kaori Icho, also was inconsolable. ``I don't think there's anything more painful in the world,'' she said.

These wrestlers weren't awed at being included in the Olympics for the first time. Gratitude for the opportunity ended the moment they stepped on the mat.

The proof was in the bruises: a swelling black and blue over Miranda's left eye, a knot the size of a golf ball on the cheek of 138.75-pound bronze medalist Lise Legrand of France, a cut on the bridge of McMann's nose.

As far as Miranda is concerned, wrestling showed that women can compete in any Olympic sport.

Good luck trying to persuade her otherwise.

``Unless you can really convince me that there's something beyond two arms and two legs, like something you definitely need a penis to do, I don't think there's a sport out there that women can't do, too,'' she said.

This was just the debut. Imagine what it will be like the next time around.

``I may not be out there competing,'' Miranda said. ``But you can bet I'll be watching.''

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Competitors voice pride in being pioneers as women's wrestling makes debut

Monday, August 23, 2004
BY STEVE POLITI
Star-Ledger Staff

ATHENS, Greece -- This was not one for the books. It was one for the looks.

How many times had Sara McMann seen the look? She would tell people she was a wrestler, and their eyebrows would immediately shoot up their foreheads before scanning her body to see what they were missing.

"They always say, 'You're a wrestler?'" the Colorado Springs resident said, "like they anticipated that I would be bigger, have two teeth and a hunchback and look like an ogre."

So yesterday afternoon, when McMann needed just two minutes to complete the first pin in women's Olympic wrestling history, she thought about the step her sport was taking to gain acceptance. That maybe someday, a few Olympiads from now, a girl can start wrestling in high school without everyone thinking she is a circus freak.

McMann, 23, is one of four Americans to compete in the first women's wrestling tournament ever at the Olympics, and while they are trying to win gold medals, they realize they are also competing for something more important: acceptance.

"Look at us. See the sweat. See the tears. See the triumphs," said Patricia Miranda, who wrestles in the 105.5-pound weight class. "It is as intense as any other sport -- any other male sport.

"The Olympics are a place where someone might turn the TV on for more than two minutes and see everything we love about sport and say, 'Yeah, why can't women wrestle?' And every girl in America will know they can."

It was a day of mixed results for the U.S. women. Two of them, McMann (139 pounds) and Miranda, advanced to the semifinal round today and can win gold medals with a pair of victories. The other two, Toccara Montgomery (158) and Tela O'Donnell (121), lost in pool play and were eliminated from medal competition.

"The fact that two people didn't advance on a team of only four is painful," Miranda said. "We're very closely knit."

The four U.S. women arrived here last week and answered the same questions they have answered from the moment they first stepped on the mat. Really, it is just one question.

Why?

Why choose one of the most male-dominated sports? Why cause ripples at high schools that don't have -- or want -- a girls wrestling program? Why put the boys in a no-win situation, forcing them to wrestle against girls in tournaments and risk the humiliation of losing?

Why?

"I was a teenage girl and everyone was telling me 'no,'" said Montgomery, a Cleveland native. "And when somebody says 'no,' you know we're going to do the opposite."

They all have their stories. Montgomery needed another sport so she could win the "top female athlete" award in her high school. McMann attended wrestling power Lock Haven (Pa.) University watching her brothers wrestle. Miranda and O'Donnell were just looking for something to challenge them.

O'Donnell, who grew up in Homer, Alaska, was turned away when she attempted to try out for the eighth-grade team in her hometown. She kept coming back.

"I guess there was a girl wrestler earlier who beat some of the boys and their parents were upset," she said. "I talked to the school board members, wrote letters and made phone calls.

"Eventually they let me stay on the team as a practice person," she said. "Since high school, I've been treated like a wrestler. When somebody is doing a sport because they love it and they're taking it seriously, then it's hard not to take them seriously."

Montgomery will go home without a medal, but when she gets back in Cleveland, she will get a different reception than she used to when she first started in the sport.

"There were opposing teams that refused to wrestle me, or coaches that wouldn't let their athletes wrestle me," she said. "I can go back now and I have guys coming out and asking me if I would wrestle with them. It's definitely changing over the years."

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WRESTLING
Initial finals full of emotion

Meredith May, Chronicle Staff Writer 8/24/04

Athens -- The first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in wrestling didn't even know she had won.

Irini Merleni of Ukraine and Chiharu Icho of Japan dueled to an overtime tie after nine minutes. The exhausted 106-pounders were sweating on the mat, waiting for the judges to count the number of warnings given and determine the winner.

When the referee raised Merleni's hand, he got more than he bargained for -- a leaping bear hug by the 4-foot-11 wrestler with bleached-blond pigtails. Sobbing, she jumped into her coach's arms. Then she dropped down and kissed the mat. Someone threw down a Ukrainian flag and that made her cry even harder.

The official who put the gold medal around her neck got another sloppy hug. Her bouquet trembled in her hands as her flag was raised, tears flowing down her cheeks.

"I was surprised and overwhelmed with happiness when they raised my hand, '' she said. "The Olympic gold is the most sacred thing in an athlete's life."

Bronze is pretty special too, even if it took Patricia Miranda a while to recognize it. The Saratoga wrestler and Stanford graduate didn't score at all in the Monday morning semifinals against Merleni, who tumbled Miranda around to win 9-0. In the evening, Miranda defeated Angelique Berthenet of France 12- 4 to clinch the bronze medal.

For the athletes who debuted in women's wrestling at the 2004 Olympics, the battles meant much more than athletic recognition. After years of fighting just to be able to wrestle in schools and clubs that once dismissed them, Monday's matches were redemption of the sweetest kind. That's why the wins brought ecstasy, and why the defeats stung so much, bringing silver medalists to tears.

Icho ripped the silver from her neck and the olive wreath from her head the moment she was out of sight of the cameras.

"The finals ended with me getting silver because of my lack of courage," she said in a terse translated interview with reporters. Icho said she was filled with regret, and worried her defeat would affect the morale of her little sister, Kaori, who was to wrestle in the 139-pound division later.

She worried for naught, as Kaori came from behind to best America's only shot for a gold medal, defeating Sara McMann of North Carolina. With the predominantly Japanese crowd banging drums and chanting, "KA-OR-I!, KA-OR-I!" the Japanese wrestler caught McMann's foot and flipped her, winning the match in the last 30 seconds by 3-2.

Kaori's coach ran onto the mat and hoisted the winner on his shoulders, as she pumped her fists in the air to the roar of the Japanese cheering section.

On the medal stand, McMann couldn't lift her head as the Japanese anthem played. She openly wept at the sight of silver around her neck. Lise Legrand of France took the bronze.

The Japanese contingent, which had been hoping to sweep all four weight categories, wound up with two gold medalists -- Kaori Icho and Saori Yoshida, who won the 121-pound category. As the country with the longest history of women's wrestling, Japan brought the most fervent fans to the stadium, including Animaru "The Animal" Hamaguchi, a former pro wrestler who had to be restrained by volunteers when he tried to leap over the railing onto the mat when his daughter Kyoko lost her morning semifinal.

It was the kind of intensity Miranda knows is inherent in her sport -- the consolation to her bronze medal in the 106-pound division.

Miranda had been training all her life for the gold, starting when she was the first girl on the wrestling team at Redwood Middle School, then Saratoga High, and then Stanford. She deferred an acceptance to Yale Law School for two years to train at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. Merleni was her nemesis, the woman who beat her at last year's world championships. They were 1-1 going into Monday's match, but Merleni was unstoppable.

"I have to say, that six-hour period between semifinals and finals was probably one of the hardest I've had in my sport," Miranda said after accepting the bronze. "Every time I dreamed about it, it was the gold. I had to look down and see other positives and say that there is some pride to still go out and take the best place I can. I'm going to represent myself and my country."

Miranda, who three months ago married her longtime sparring partner, Levi Weikel-Magden, said she's going to focus on law school, which starts next week. But she left the door open to continue wrestling, saying "it might be too hard to shake out of my blood."

Her coach, Terry Steiner, said Miranda might not appreciate the bronze now, but in a decade she'll take great pride in her accomplishment.

"Bronze is still a medal at the Olympic Games," he said.

For now, Miranda is focusing on her place in women's sports history -- a thought she has not allowed herself to ponder until now.

Although adding women's wrestling to the Games is "just step one" to legitimizing her sport, she said, "We had leeway to every TV set, people got to see a great finals match between Japan and the Ukraine go into overtime, with the sweat and the pain on their faces ... no one was sure who was going to get the takedown. That's what sport is. The tragedy and the triumphs were communicated, and that's going to do so much to progress our sport. It's saying that every woman in the world can wrestle."

Xu Wang of China won gold in the heaviest, 158-pound division. In keeping with the jubilation of the three previous winners, she grabbed a Chinese flag, hoisted it over her head and ran in circles around the mat.

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Briefing

MEDALISTS
48 kg

Gold: Irini Merleni

Silver: Chiharu Icho

Bronze: Patricia Miranda

55 kg

Gold: Saori Yoshida

Silver: Tonya Verbeek

Bronze: Anna Gomis

63 kg

Gold: Kaori Icho

Silver: Sara McMann

Bronze: Lise Legrand

72 kg

Gold: Wang Xu

Silver: Gouzel Maniourova

Bronze: Kyoko Hamaguchi

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Women ready to go to the mat for respect
O'Donnell among competitors who want to be taken seriously

By JEROME SOLOMON
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle 8/22/04

ATHENS, GREECE - Like other attractive, charming, smart young women, Tela O'Donnell of the United States wrestling team has heard almost every pick-up line imaginable.

But she finds herself subject to a different array of them once potential suitors discover her favorite pastime.

"They go, 'Hey, wanna wrestle?' " the 22-year-old O'Donnell said laughing. "Some'll go, 'Come on. Pin me.' "

And it's not only those from the MTV generation who tend to be a bit uncouth when it comes to women's wrestling.

When the U.S. women's team went to New York for a pre-Olympic training camp in June, mayor Michael Bloomberg offered a proclamation declaring it women's freestyle wrestling week.

Then, in a most juvenile moment, the Bloomberg joked about naked mud wrestling with the women.

But today women's wrestling gets its first taste of the ultimate exposure — the Olympic Games — and there is no mud, Jell-O, or midgets involved, thank you.

"I'm very sensitive about it," said Patricia Miranda, one of the favorites for gold in the 105.5-pound weight class. "We have a long way to go to get to the point where we're respected and not some side joke.

"Athens is our stage to say, 'Look at us.' This isn't a sideshow or mud wrestling. If people see us on TV for just two minutes, they'll see the sweat and tears and joy that goes into it. With the Olympics, maybe every girl in America (who wants to wrestle) is going to say they can."

Though wrestling is the oldest Olympic sport, women's wrestling is the newest at the modern Games, with competition in four weight classes. The men compete for 14 gold medals, with seven classes each in Greco-Roman and freestyle.

Women's matches began today, with the United States and Japan expected to dominate on the mat.

The United States has three medalists from the 2003 world championships here, along with O'Donnell, who is new to international competition but beat world championships silver medalist Tina George to make the team.

"It could be an advantage," O'Donnell said of her lack of international exposure. "Maybe they're not used to the style I bring."

U.S. coaches say that while the 121-pounder may not be fundamentally sound, she is an excellent scrambler who can get out of tough situations.

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Coming up short can bring tears to tough women
Wrestler Sara McMann struggled with her emotions Monday.

Gary R. Blockus 8/25/04
Of The Morning Call

ATHENS, Greece | Sara McMann may be the toughest woman in the United States, but on Monday night, she was reduced to tears.

McMann cried after losing to Japan's Kaori Icho in the gold-medal final of the 63-kilogram (138.5-pound) class in the first-ever Olympic wrestling tournament for women. She continued to cry on the podium, head hanging, as if winning a silver medal brought her shame instead of an olive branch laurel.

She continued to cry at the post-match interview nearly 30 minutes after her 3-2 loss,

And even two hours later, at a press conference to showcase her and bronze-medal winner Patricia Miranda (48-kilos), she got teary-eyed.

A week ago, these same women sat in a different press conference, announcing that they, as athletes, had arrived, that women can compete in the same sports men can, and that they demanded respect.

McMann's teary appearance following the match was certainly understandable, and her tears and posture on the podium made the moment heartfelt and deep reaching.

Some may chide McMann's honest emotion. But perspective is important. Iranian men regularly cry uncontrollably after they lose matches, sobbing as though they've experienced deep personal tragedy. The risks and rewards of person-to-person combat are great, and emotion pours out.

''It's shortly after the match,'' U.S. women's coach Terry Steiner said. ''They deserve the right to feel the pain. It's the one thing they earned. It's a natural consequence of their dreams remaining unfulfilled.''

Both women spoke eloquently of their quest to win an Olympic gold medal. Indeed, both said it was the coveted prize after winning silver medals at the 2003 World Championships at Madison Square Garden last September.

''In many ways, this is different, because after Worlds, there was always Athens,'' said the Stanford-educated, Yale law-bound Miranda. ''In New York, it stung . I can compare it to a superficial cut, like it stings, versus a heart attack … The only thing to shut it down was knowing there was Athens … Now, there's a finality.''

Perhaps a finality for the gold medal hopes, but not for the thousands of young women wrestlers who saw McMann and Miranda step on the podium and don Olympic medals.

When McMann was asked what one thing she'd like to see happen with women's wrestling, she thought for a moment then said: ''I'd get more publicity for it. The more people exposed to it, the more people see it, the more perceptions will change.''

Even if the U.S. women didn't bring home a gold medal, they did achieve one of their dreams, setting foot on the Olympic stage.

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Wrestlers changing attitudes

By Jay Heater 8/24/04

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

Casey Rhyan, the former Deer Valley High School wrestling coach, thought he was just being a good guy by allowing freshman Malinda Ripley to be part of his 1998 wrestling team, figuring she would go through the motions, take a beating and fade away.

Rhyan had no idea that Ripley would forever change his way of thinking about women in wrestling. She eventually rose to the top of her sport in America, winning a pair of 51 kilogram national freestyle titles.

Unfortunately for Ripley, she suffered a dislocated right elbow just before the U.S. Olympic Trials in May and had to watch on television the Olympic women's wrestling competition that concluded Monday in Athens, Greece.

Rhyan also was watching, which wouldn't have been the case before Ripley came along.

"I didn't agree with girls wrestling," Rhyan said. "When I wrestled, I always felt that I might refuse to wrestle a girl. As I got older, I carried that feeling with me.

"Malinda changed me. She was, hands down, one of the toughest wrestlers I've coached or coached against."

He learned that toughness, work ethic and aggressiveness aren't limited to one gender.

"She wanted to win and she was fiercely competitive," Rhyan said. "I was expecting problems, such as harassment, but it didn't turn out that way at all. I learned that you can't generalize and that every person is different. I always had made the general judgment that girls should not wrestle. But I saw what it did for her in terms of self-confidence and self-esteem. She was looking for a chance."

Whether the American public will give women's wrestling a chance might have been determined this week with the sport being included in the Olympics for the first time.

"The American public will learn about women's wrestling," said Sara McMann, who won the silver medal at 63 kilograms. "They are going to see that wrestling makes your identity stronger."

Nobody on the U.S. team has a stronger identity than Patricia Miranda, the Stanford grad who will be headed to Yale's law school to pursue a career in politics. Miranda, who won the bronze medal on Monday, admitted that competing in a man's world was tough when she first began wrestling in eighth grade.

"The first time I went to practice, it really scared me," she said. "It was way too violent. But maybe that's why I went back."

As an eighth-grader, Miranda was just another kid wrestling. In the ninth grade, when she joined the high school team, she became the only girl on the team.

"I had them take down the mirrors," she said. "I never thought of myself as the female."

Ripley said she never had any problem with her identity as a female even though she would routinely beat the boys in high school.

"I had self-confidence and I knew what I was doing," she said. "I didn't have to explain myself to anyone. But there were some tough times. When I started, I was really petite. My body gained muscle mass like crazy and I became very defined. I had a hard time, but I was OK with myself."

Although many people in the U.S. were exposed to women's wrestling this week for the first time, it's not like women haven't been wrestling for quite some time. In the early 1980s, Albany High coach Kermit Bankson allowed girls to wrestle on his team with the boys.

"They were kids and they wanted to do kid things," said Bankson, who said he never minded mixing genders on the wrestling mat. "Title IX had come along and it said that girls had to have opportunities. The girls who got involved with us were unique kids and we treated them normal. Actually, I think it was harder on the guys because they always were afraid they would lose to one of them."

Going into his 35th season, Bankson will have girls on his team again. Last season, three girls competed for Albany. All three return.

Rhyan now coaches at El Dorado High in Placerville. He didn't have any girls try out for his team.

"It's a little different world up here," Rhyan said. "But you never know. Female wrestling is just getting going, and like I told Malinda, you might end up on a cereal box. That's the kind of thing people dream about."