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Olympians O’Donnell and Montgomery to lead 2004 U.S. Women’s World Cup Team
9/15/2004
John Fuller/USA Wrestling
USA Wrestling has announced its roster for the 2004 Women’s Freestyle World Cup to be held in Tokyo, Japan, October 8-9. The U.S. will compete against teams from host Japan, Canada, China, Germany and Russia.
The U.S. team will be led by Olympians Tela O’Donnell (Colorado Springs, Colo./Dave Schultz WC) at 55 kg/121 lbs. and Toccara Montgomery (Cleveland, Ohio/New York AC) at 72 kg/158.5 lbs.
O’Donnell placed sixth at the 2004 Olympic Games. She was a 2003 U.S. Nationals champion.
Montgomery placed seventh at the 2004 Olympic Games. She won a gold medal at the 2003 World Cup. She won silver medals at the 2001 and 2003 World Championships and has captured four U.S. Nationals titles.
Also on the squad is 2001 World silver medalist Stephanie Murata (Colorado Springs, Colo./Sunkist Kids) at 51 kg/112.25 lbs. Murata has competed in six World Championships in she is a seven-time U.S. Nationals champion.
2003 World Cup gold medalist Sally Roberts (Colorado Springs, Colo./Gator WC) will compete at 59 kg/130 lbs. Roberts also captured a bronze medal at the 2003 World Championships. She was also a 2003 U.S. Nationals champion.
2004 U.S. Olympic Team Trials runners-up Clarissa Chun (Colorado Springs, Colo./Gator WC) and Alaina Berube (Escanaba, Mich./New York AC) will also compete.
Chun will wrestle at 48 kg/105.5 lbs. She competed in the 2000 World Championships. She is a four-time U.S. Nationals runner-up and won a bronze medal at the 2002 Pan American Championships.
Berube will compete at 63 kg/138.75 lbs. She currently attends Cumberland College in Kentucky. She placed fourth at the 2003 Junior World Championships and placed fourth in the 2003-04 U.S. Nationals.
Rounding out the U.S. roster will be Katie Downing (Colorado Springs, Colo./Sunkist Kids) at 67 kg/147.5 lbs.
Downing was a 2003 U.S. Nationals champion and won the U.S. World Team Trials in 2002 and 2003. She also won a gold medal at the 2001 World Cup.
Murata, Roberts and Downing all won the 2004 Women’s National Team Trials for the non-Olympic weights.
The team will be coached by USA Wrestling National Women’s Coach Terry Steiner (Colorado Springs, Colo.) and USA Wrestling Freestyle Developmental Coach Dave Bennett (Colorado Springs, Colo.).
In this year’s Olympic Games, Japan won two gold medals, one silver and one bronze. Canada won one silver medal and had two women place fifth. China captured one gold medal. Germany had two women place sixth. Russia won one silver medal and had one woman place fifth.
In the 2003 Women’s Freestyle World Cup also held in Tokyo, the U.S. team upset Japan in the gold-medal dual, winning 14-13. The U.S. had four individual gold medalists: Roberts, Montgomery, Patricia Miranda at 48 kg/105.5 lbs. and Kristie Marano at 67 kg/147.5 lbs.
Click here for 2003 Women’s Freestyle World Cup results
2004 U.S. Women’s World Cup Team
at Tokyo, Japan
October 8-9
48 kg/105.5 lbs. - Clarissa Chun, Colorado Springs, Colo. (Gator WC)
51 kg/112.25 lbs. - Stephanie Murata, Colorado Springs, Colo. (Sunkist Kids)
55 kg/121 lbs. - Tela O’Donnell, Colorado Springs, Colo. (Dave Schultz WC)
59 kg/130 lbs. - Sally Roberts, Colorado Springs, Colo. (Gator WC)
63 kg/138.75 lbs. - Alaina Berube, Escanaba, Mich. (New York AC)
67 kg/147.5 lbs. - Katie Downing, Colorado Springs, Colo. (Sunkist Kids)
72 kg/158.5 lbs. - Toccara Montgomery, Cleveland, Ohio (New York AC)
Coaches: Dave Bennett, Colorado Springs, Colo., and Terry Steiner, Colorado Springs, Colo.
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Monday September 13, 6:38 pm ET
NEW YORK, Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP is pleased to have sponsored "Up the Glass Ceiling, A Celebration of the First US Olympic Women's Wrestling Team," a reception honoring USA Wrestling and the United States Olympic Women's Wrestling Team, Olympic medal winners Patricia Miranda and Sara McMann, and team members Toccara Montgomery and Tela O'Donnell at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, September 13, 2004. Senior Partner Daniel W. Krasner addressed a group having breakfast in honor of the Women's Wrestling Team and their ground-breaking role as among the first women wrestlers to compete at the Olympic Games. Following the breakfast, Ms. Miranda and Ms. Mongtomery, accompanied by high school and college wrestler John A. Thain, now CEO of the Stock Exchange, Catherine Kinney, President and Co-Chief Operating Officer of the Stock Exchange, Women's Wrestling Coaches Tricia and Townsend Saunders, and Mr. Krasner, rang the Opening Bell(TM) to open trading on the Stock Exchange. Wolf Haldenstein wishes to thank Dr. James L. Bicksler, Professor of Finance and Economics at Rutgers University School of Business, and Larry Nugent, Director of Development for USA Wrestling, for organizing the program.
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Wrestling has emotional hold on these women
August 24, 2004
BY RICK TELANDER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
ATHENS, Greece -- I walk into Ano Liossia Olympic Hall, and the first thing I hear above the dull roar of the crowd is a frantic, high-pitched screech.
Down on the center wrestling mat, a tiny woman in a blue singlet with two blonde pigtails coming out of her head like antennae is bouncing around as if she has stepped on a wasps nest.
It is the Ukraine's Irina Merleni. The 22-year-old, 4-11, 105-pounder from Minitskoye has just been declared the winner of the first women's wrestling event ever held at the Olympics.
It was a doozy, too -- a double-overtime thriller against Japan's Chiharu Icho.
It clearly has unhinged Merleni.
She yelps again, throws her hands in the air, then jumps into the startled referee's arms.
She clings to him for a moment like a koala bear on a eucalyptus branch, then drops off and runs around shaking the hand of everyone she sees.
Merleni will explain her actions later, saying through an interpreter, "I was obviously overwhelmed and surprised.''
But no more surprised than those of us who, until this day, had never seen women grapple outside of the random nightclub mud pit or Jello-filled wading pool.
But check all preconceived notions, ye who enter here.
Women's wrestling is serious as an eye gouge.
There were four weight classes contested in Athens -- from 48 kilograms (105.6 pounds) to 72 kilograms (158.4 pounds) -- and trust me, guys, you would not want to mix it up with any wrestling gal within 40 pounds of your weight or a hand reach of your neck.
Five-foot Patricia Miranda of the United States finished third in the 48-kilogram group, and she actually trained with and sometimes competed for the Stanford men's team at 125 pounds.
She beat the living crud out of her bronze-medal foe, France's Angelique Berthenet, 12-4.
Afterward the vocal and thoughtful Miranda, who starts classes at Yale Law School next week, was upset she missed the gold but pleased to be part of something ground-breaking.
"Speaking to what this does for my sport is far easier than speaking to what happened out there today,'' she said, referring to the gold she wanted so badly.
To her right on the dais sat the hyperglowing Merleni. And next to Merleni sat silver medalist Icho.
The poor Japanese woman, her black hair fluffed straight out like a midnight dandelion, looked so despairing, I was glad a hara-kiri sword was not nearby.
"I got silver and not gold, I think, for lack of my courage,'' Icho said, looking down as if into the abyss.
Even the bummed-out Miranda looked startled at that.
"That was a bad-ass answer, man,'' she whispered, frowning.
See, these women are tough. And resilient. Yeah, they get spread into unladylike poses, and their hands go where ladies' hands don't go, and their faces are sometimes busted up, and if they keep doing this, they'll end up with cheese-wedge ears like those of former NCAA wrestling champ and male coach Terry Steiner.
But they bounce back. Trivialities be damned.
The ladies only have been criticized and made fun of since they began their sport some 15 years ago.
The United States' 63-kilogram (138.6 pounds) wrestler, Sara McMann, could not stop crying after her gut-wrenching 3-2 loss in the gold-medal match to Kaori Icho, Chiharu Icho's big sister.
Even three hours later, back at the Olympic press center, McMann's eyes are still swollen and periodically wet.
Maybe this is a sexist thing to say, but I can't help noticing that McMann would be an attractive young woman if her face weren't cut-up and red and there weren't a raw gash across the bridge of her oft-broken nose.
"If it were only the prize, you could buy it,'' she says of the gold that barely eluded her grasp. "Wrestling is different from a race. It's not just a muscle doing a programmed action, it's so much of your personality. It's much more about the journey.''
She was ahead in her match 2-0, based on her aggressive takedown style. Then things got away from her. She starts to tear up again.
"It's painful, difficult and beautiful all at once,'' she says of the sport she loves.
Of the beating a wrestling gal's face takes, she says: "It's a small price to pay. It's worth it -- every joy, every heartbreak.''
Miranda understands both the exuberance of Merleni and the despondency of Chiharu Icho and McMann.
And she knows this sport is a perfect one for off-color hoots from the guys.
So be it. She is certain little girls everywhere would enjoy the sport, if they could just get past the stigma. After all, is a crotch hold any less embarrassing for fellows than for chicks?
"I can't count how many people were skeptical of my wrestling,'' she says.
Looking at her from certain angles, I can see that she, too, might have been glamorous, had she not been battered by her sport. Women who are not vain about their looks are tough to quantify. Unnerving, even.
I ask Miranda, then, if women should do every sport that a man does, from Olympic boxing to the decathlon to tree-chopping.
"Unless you can really convince me that it is something you need a penis to do,''' she says with a smile.
All right.
One, two, three. Pin!