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George wins spot for worlds
Army athlete tries to shake memories of 2004 upset

By MERI-JO BORZILLERI THE GAZETTE (07/12/05)

Wrestler Tina George is looking forward to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Looking back is too painful. Still.

Fourteen months after a stunning loss in the 2004 U.S. Olympic trials that kept her off the Olympic team, George's eyes still overflow at the mention of it.

Better to think Beijing. That was in the back of George's mind as she defeated Marcie Van Dusen in a special 2005 world team wrestle-off at the U.S. Olympic Training Center Monday afternoon.

George, 26, a member of the Army World Class Athlete Program based at Fort Carson, beat Van Dusen in two straight matches to qualify for the U.S. world team. The team will compete at the Sept. 26-Oct. 2 world championships in Budapest, Hungary.

For George, it helped put some distance between herself and 2004. That's when upstart Tela O'Donnell upset George, the two-time world silver medalist, with two late pins in the 121-pound class at the Olympic trials.

O'Donnell, 22, from Homer, Alaska, got to compete in Athens, finishing fifth as women's wrestling made its Olympic debut.

George couldn't even watch. She stayed home. She stayed away from the TV.

George refused an invitation to travel with the team to Athens to serve as a training partner, she said.

"Maybe it was something selfish," she says now. "I couldn't accept the fact I was No. 2."

Wrestlers are trained to grab hold and hang on until pain or exhaustion - or the end of a match - forces them to let go.

George couldn't let go. She said she lived in denial for months. In August, she kept her luggage packed right up until the Olympic weigh-ins before the women's competition.

"In case she fell and broke her leg," George said, giggling now at the craziness of it.

"I was in a zombie sort-of state for a long time," she said Monday.

George, who won her third national title in May, is coming out of it.

"This year is the year I want to win in the world championships," George said. "This was a step to get there."

George was granted the special wrestle-off because of injuries that kept her from last month's world team trials.

That's fair, said Van Dusen, winner of the world team trials at 121 pounds (55 kg).

"She was the best person," Van Dusen said. "She should go."

The taut-muscled George didn't look like the best after Monday's matches.

She won by takedown with just four seconds left in the second match. Drained by emotion and energy, she wasn't sure she could have lasted a third match, George said.

"I was really nervous," she said. "I hadn't had as much time to train" because of injuries to her hand (torn tendons) and knee (partially torn ligament).

The year after an Olympics, wrestlers usually take time to repair muscles and minds taxed from the intense buildup to the Games. Some even take a year off.

Not George.

Three years early, she has dived right back in, partly to squelch any thought by her opponents that she's vulnerable.

The 2004 trials still sting. George vows she won't let go until she can't hang on.

"The journey is not over until I win a gold medal at the Olympics," she said. "If I can't get it done in 2008, then I'll do it in 2012."

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0259 or merijo@gazette.com

World wrestling championships, Budapest, Hungary, Sept. 26 to Oct. 2

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Fighting spirit: Mild-mannered teen is a fierce competitor on the wrestling mat

Katherine Dedyna
Saskatoon StarPhoenix 07-09-2005

VICTORIA -- Teenager Stacie Anaka has strong-armed her passion for
non-traditional athletics into a major payoff: Simon Fraser University
has offered her four years of tuition and fees worth about $20,000 to
wrestle for its powerhouse women's wrestling team.

Most people get through life oblivious to the fireman's takedown and
the chicken-wing arm bar. But domination in such moves have spurred Anaka
to win the B.C. high school wrestling championship and a gold medal at
Canada's juvenile nationals -- her third national title for her weight class.
Anaka, 17, gets in the zone when she's on the mat, enjoying the power
and mental toughness it brings out in her.

"It's not like a mean aggression," explains the soft-spoken honour
student. "The aim is to pin your opponent to the mat. The match is over if your
shoulder blades touch the mat."

And this is freestyle wrestling, not the chest-pounding,
entertainment-focused world of professional wrestling. In her 65-
kilogram (143-pound) weight class, there's nothing hulking or over- muscled
about Anaka. Opponents are strictly matched for weight. Gain a smidge, and
she'd be up against different women.

Often, because of the lack of female competition, she wrestles against
guys in practice, where her well-honed techniques take on their superior
strength.

Women's wrestling is a relative newcomer on the serious women's sports
scene (only in 2004 did it qualify for its first Olympics) and stereotypes
abound.

"When I tell friends that she's a wrestler, they think she's a beast
and that she beats you up," says her boyfriend Pat Sails. "I say: "She's
really nice, She's the nicest wrestler there is."

One of her coaches, Jason Kerluck, considers her a poster girl for the
sport, despite her reluctance to talk herself up in the press.

"She's a pretty girl and she has really good grades . . . but at the
same time (has) those qualities of being very athletic, very strong and very
successful in wrestling. She makes us look good and more appealing to
other kids who want to wrestle," says Kerluck.

Especially girls. Even though Plato talked of Spartan women and
wrestling in Ancient Greece ("to be able to face the enemy and defend their children
and their city"), SFU didn't even have women's team until 1993. That's also
the first year a university team was sponsored in the U.S.

Kerluck marvels that wrestling is paying back Anaka's dedication: "To
get her schooling paid for is outstanding."

Anaka's past success has heaped a lot of pressure on her well- toned
shoulders.

"Each year as she gets older, everyone expects her to top what she did
the previous year," says Kerluck. "She has been known for the last three
years as unbeatable. Every match, every tournament, it builds up."

She's been a natural at the sport since she first tried it in Grade 3.
One of her inspirations has been her cousin, Brian Anaka, a gifted athlete
killed in a car accident four years ago, says her mother Karen.

Anaka's marks got her into SFU, which funded 10 other female wrestlers
last year.

"We have lots of good wrestlers who can't wrestle here because they're
not academically gifted enough," says Serena Lusk, assistant director of
finance at SFU Recreation

Her award is contingent on maintaining both athletic and academic
prowess.

"I think she has a huge future -- I think most of her best wrestling is
still ahead of her," says SFU wrestling coach Mike Jones, who rates her
as the top female prospect in the country.

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Hard work pays off in gold for Bernard;

Ian Hamilton,Regina LeaderPost 07-14-2005

Ali Bernard is on top of the world -- again.

The University of Regina Cougars wrestler is back home in New Ulm,
Minn., after winning the women's 72-kilogram weight division at the world
junior wrestling championships in Vilnius, Lithuania. The American star won
the 67kg world junior title in 2003.
"(The second crown) means I'm still improving, which is good," Bernard,
19, said Wednesday from her family's home. "It shows I'm getting better at
Regina."

Bernard was a Canada West and CIS champion in her first season with the
Cougars and was named the outstanding female wrestler and female
rookie-of-the-year at both meets.

This summer, she has added an American junior crown and a world title.
In Vilnius, she pinned all four of her opponents after doing the same
thing at the U.S. junior team trials.

In short, Bernard is wiping the mat with her opponents.

"I expected to do well (in Lithuania), but I thought it was pretty
impressive that I pinned everybody," Bernard said. "I work hard, I've
got good coaches and I've got good practice partners."

Much of her progress this season was made in the wrestling room at the
U of R under the watchful eye of Cougars head coach Leo McGee.

"She just keeps getting better and better and better," McGee said. "She
brings the best attitude in town -- attitude about training and what
she can do. She really believes that she can be the best in the world and that
she's capable of beating everybody.

"She's something. She's really something. She's going to get better as
she matures and she's going to be a force to be reckoned with."

Like she isn't already.

Some people probably envy Bernard's success, which is somewhat ironic
-- considering envy is why she started wrestling in 1998.

"My brother (Andy) was in it and he had a whole bunch of medals,"
recalled Ali, who was in Grade 6 at the time. "I was pretty jealous. Now I have
medals of my own."

Which sibling has more hardware?

"Me," Ali replied with a laugh. "He's done."

Surprisingly, Ali's career almost was done before it started.

"I planned on quitting when I hit high school," Bernard said. "After I
got out of junior high, I thought I'd quit. I wasn't going to wrestle with
the guys (in high school). But one thing led to another and I never quit."

It has been well-documented that Bernard was a trailblazer in high
school, where she wrestled on the boys team. It certainly helped her (a)
improve and (b) catch McGee's attention.

"Any girl on a high school wrestling team in Minnesota is like a girl
playing junior hockey here -- she's got to be all right," McGee said.
"She's going to know what hard work is all about and she's going to have
skill.

"When I saw her, I just said, 'Wow.' She shocked me with her athletic
ability and flexibility."

Those traits have served Bernard well so far. However, she knows she
has to keep working on those and other skills.

"I can improve in every aspect," said Bernard, who's to represent the
U.S. at the 2005 World University Games next month in Izmir, Turkey. "I'm
still not as good as I could be.

"(Being the best in the U.S.) would be pretty good," she added. "I've
always been extremely competitive, but there's always someone better than you
so
you have to work harder. Eventually, there will be fewer people who can
beat you.

"It all has happened pretty quick."

It's probably not over, either. The 2008 Summer Olympic Games in
Beijing, China beckon.

"(U.S. wrestling officials) are targeting her as one of their Olympic
hopefuls," McGee said. "If she doesn't do it, it'll be a
student-gone-wrong kind of thing -- but I don't see that happening."

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Fantastic moments started in November and might not be done yet;

Dave Miller
Chicago Daily Herald (Paddock) 06-10-2005

Wow, that didn't take long, did it?

The school year has come to an end. That means it's time to present the
area's best moments in high school sports. Kevin Schmit wrote about the
boys in this space last week. Today it's time for the girls.
Can I get a drum roll from Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney?

Here are the Top 10 moments in girls sports from our DuPage County
coverage area listed in the order they happened:

Nov. 6: PEORIA - Paced by junior Shannon Phelan's third-place finish,
the Naperville North cross country team lives up to its favorite status and
wins the Class AA championship, topping runner- up Lincoln-Way East 81-128
at Detweiller Park.

Sophomore Maggie DeBerge and senior Alli Grissom also earn all- state
honors for the Huskies, placing 20th and 22nd, respectively.

"These girls showed a tremendous amount of maturity, knowing they
should win and going out and doing it," Naperville North coach Dan Iverson said.

Nov. 13: NORMAL - The St. Francis volleyball team steps up into
history.

Raising their level of play on the final day of the season, the
Spartans claim their third straight Class A title by sweeping Mt. Pulaski 25-18,
25-15.

"We had something to prove after we took second in (the Suburban
Catholic)
Conference," St. Francis senior setter Kiley Fister said. "That was a
bump in the road for us, but it just gave us that much more energy and
oomph."

St. Francis becomes the third volleyball program in state history to
pull off a three-peat, joining Mother McAuley (1981-83) and Breese Mater Dei
(1993-95).

Nov. 20: EVANSTON - The Naperville Central swimming team shatters
records in claiming the state title, beating runner-up Rosary 168- 131.

The Redhawks start the meet by winning the 200-yard medley relay.
Junior Sarah Pucci, junior Kelly McNichols, freshman Amy Prestinario and
senior Stephanie Coutts set a state record of 1:45.70

Then McNichols wins the 200 freestyle in a record-breaking 1:47.26.

"We knew if we concentrated on winning the first two events, it would
be hard for the other teams to catch us," McNichols said.

McNichols takes the 500 freestyle in 4:50.85 and then swims a record
100 freestyle in 49.5 in the first leg of her team's 400 freestyle relay
team - which includes freshman Heather Gardner, Coutts and junior Kelly
Krzemienski - that wins in 3:27.44.

Neuqua Valley junior Melissa Marik wins the 100 freestyle in 51.40.

Dec. 16: AURORA - Waubonsie Valley junior Ashley Rymer bowls a 300
game, only the fourth perfect game by a girl in state history, according to
the IHSA record book.

Her 699 series in a match against East Aurora at Parkside Lanes ranks
18th all time in state history.

(Rymer later pitches a perfect game for the softball team in a 3- 0
victory at East Aurora on May 21.)

Feb. 18: CHAMPAIGN - Glenbard North junior wrestler Caitlyn Chase
becomes the first female wrestler to participate in the individual state
finals.

However, she gets pinned in her first match at Assembly Hall.

"In my match I let my nerves get to me," Chase said.

Glenbard North coach Mark Hahn speaks to the big picture.

"I'm real happy because she's a good Glenbard North wrestler, not
because she's a girl," Hahn said. "And I know that's important to her. I forgot
she was a girl wrestler three years ago."

A week later in DeKalb, Chase wins a 5-3 decision to help the Panthers
edge St. Rita 27-22 in the team dual state semifinals at the NIU Convocation
Center.

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Wrestle Mania;

Will Webber Journal Staff Writer
Albuquerque Journal 07-16-2005

Girls Finding A Hold In Sport

AAU GRAND NATIONALS
Michele Querin has a message for girls trying to make headway in a
sport traditionally dominated by the opposite sex: Don't let boys push you
around.

One of just a few teenage females taking part in this week's Amateur
Athletic Union Grand Nationals wrestling tournament at Santa Fe High
School, the Napa, Calif., resident said the biggest obstacle girls must
overcome is a lack of confidence.

"Boys can be pretty rough, and they say some bad things because they
never want to lose to a girl," Querin said. "If you can ignore that, you'll
be OK. You just have to try extra hard."

At 17, Querin is believed to be the oldest female entered in the field
of more than 600. The tournament concludes today with the collegiate-style
finals at Toby Roybal Memorial Gymnasium.

Querin was one of three girls representing the Napa Valley club team.
Another was Melissa Phan, 12.

Dealing with the physical nature of the sport is just one of the
challenges. The other, Phan said, is boys trying to take it to the next level.

Asked about the worst experience she'd ever had in a match, she said it
was the time a boy picked her up and slammed her to the floor.

"I think he was trying to prove something," Phan said. "But actually, a
lot of them have been really nice. I think the older you get, the worse it
gets, but right now it's not too bad."

Also entered this week was West Las Vegas student Vanessa Lucero, the
only girl ever to earn a medal at the state wrestling championships.
Competing as a junior for the Dons' varsity squad last season, she finished sixth in
the 1A-3A draw.

Her feat has transformed her into something of a role model for girls
from northern New Mexico. Girls from several communities now find themselves
trying to make headway in the sport; the Las Vegas- based San Miguel
Grapplers club team has two pre-teen girls on its roster, while several
more dot Santa Fe club teams.

One of them, 9-year-old Jacklyn Lopez of Pecos, dominated a boy in a
second-round match Friday. Her coach, Mel Rael, said it's easier for
girls when they're younger because boys are generally the same size and
strength.

"I think she's more comfortable wrestling this style anyway because
collegiate is the kind we use in high schools around here," Rael said.
"You get a little girl on the mat with a little boy, and it's pretty even."

"By the time they get to about 13 is when it starts getting really
hard," added Roger Tate. "If they compete with boys now, when they're young,
it makes them tough."

Tate was on hand Friday to coach his 11-year-old daughter, Shelbelynn.
Both are from the Navajo Nation in Arizona. Out there, they said,
opportunities for girls on the mats are few and far between.

"We train on a mat in our living room," the elder Tate says. "You have
to make sacrifices."

A national organization that bills the Grand Nationals as the country's
oldest wrestling tournament, the AAU does not have a separate category
for girls. An event organizer indicated fewer than two dozen girls had
registered for the four-day tournament.

One of the more colorful entrants was Santa Fe's Marina Montoya, a
talkative 9-year-old competing for the Patriots club team. A winner in three of
her first four matches this week, she said she enjoys beating any boy who
crosses her path.

Like so many other girls, she was introduced to the sport by an older
male family member. With a year's experience under her belt, she knows she
belongs.

"I'm better than a lot of boys," she said, smiling.

Selling her mom on the sport wasn't too hard. Keeping her off the mat
during a tough match is a different story.

"When I lost my match (Thursday), I could tell my mom wanted to run out
there and help me," Montoya said. "But she likes it."

Querin knows all about family involvement. Her coach is her
grandfather, Jim Lanterman, and her mother is her biggest fan.

"Moms always hate to see us out here at first," Querin said. "Now I
can't keep my mom away."

Lanterman doubles as the head wrestling coach at Vintage High School in
Napa. He began a girls club team at the school eight years ago. He says
membership now tops 300, making it the second-largest girls wrestling
program in California.

The Golden State has also instituted a year-end state tournament for
girls.

"With the numbers we're getting, it is probably the fastest- growing
women's sport in the state," Lanterman said.

Leading the way for Vintage is Querin. A medalist at the state meet
last year, she is currently ranked second in her weight class back home.

"More and more, boys are finding out that they've got a battle on their
hands when they come across a girl," Lanterman said.

Or, as Querin puts it, the best opportunity for girls from coast to
coast is an equal one.

"It's fun because it seems like there's more girls coming out all the
time," she said.

Wrestling

AAU GRAND NATIONALS

When: Collegiate-style finals, all day today (9 a.m. start)

Where: Santa Fe High School

Tickets: $10 adult single-session, $5 students