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By Jeff Faraudo, STAFF WRITER
Article Last Updated: 08/07/2007 04:30:40 AM PDT
THEIR STORIES are different, their dreams the same.
It's one year out from the Aug.8, 2008 start of the Beijing Olympics, and for four Bay Area athletes with aspirations of competing at the Games, there is little time to reflect on the road traveled so far, or the path ahead.
"When you're four years away, it feels like you've got a lot of time," said two-time Olympic water polo player Heather Petri, who grew up in Orinda and played at Cal. "But it's coming up quick."
While many fans don't bother tuning in to Olympic sports until the torch lights the cauldron every four years, the athletes pursue their ambitions with steady, quiet focus.
"Everybody dreams about going to the Olympics," said Trevell Quinley, a long jumper from Tracy.
Quinley knows not everyone gets to go. Petri understands that hard truth, too, as do softball player Jessica Mendoza and wrestler Stephanie Murata. Petri and Mendoza are hardly complacent having been there before; Quinley and Murata are hungrier still as they chase their first Olympics berth.
One year to go for the Bay Area foursome. One year left to finish sculpting the athletic masterpiece of a young lifetime.
Jessica Mendoza
Mendoza was part of what Sports Illustrated called "The Real Dream Team." In fact, the 2004 Olympic softball team was almost The Perfect Team.
Team USA won 70 games in a row heading into Athens, then outscored nine Olympic foes 51-1.
"We're expected to win all the time, and win by a lot," said Mendoza, 26, a former Stanford star and the No. 3 hitter in the U.S. lineup. "If they score a run against us, you can feel fans saying,from Sports 1
'What's wrong?' There's pressures all around. That's what makes our team keep getting better.
"That's what makes us keep working hard, so maybe we can be as good or better than 2004."
Mendoza, without argument, is a better player than she was in 2004, when she was a newcomer on Team USA and batted a modest .250 at the Athens Olympics. Now one of the club's standouts, she was MVP of the 2006 World Championships in Japan, then batted .533 in this summer's Canada Cup.
During a broadcast of a game at the World Cup in Oklahoma City this summer, ESPN commentator Eric Collins suggested Mendoza might be the best hitter in the softball world.
"I definitely don't think of myself that way," said Mendoza. "It's a nice compliment. To be honest, I let it go in one ear and out the other. I just know what I can do."
She also knows what it takes to field a team as flawless as the '04 U.S. Olympic squad. This club is a bit younger, especially its pitching staff, although Mendoza said she wouldn't be surprised if retired ace Lisa Fernandez returns.
The key, Mendoza said, is coach Mike Candrea's ability to fit together players who will mesh well and complement each other.
"It's not just about talent. He looks for a balance, how everyone is going to get along," she said. "It's about accepting your role and being happy. Really happy, not pretend happy. That's so hard to do, but he knows the right recipe."
This figures to be Mendoza's last Olympics, with softball off the schedule for the 2012 London Games.
Mendoza takes nothing for granted, even the exalted status of her team, unbeaten this summer in a variety of international events.
"There's definitely some things that need to be worked on," she said. "I know that sounds funny, but the Olympics is a completely different story. Teams show up and they overachieve."
Trevell Quinley
For Quinley, a 24-year-old graduate of West High in Tracy and Arizona State, the path to Beijing requires navigating some fiscal realities.
A year ago, for instance, he spent much of the summer based in Lignano, Italy, near Venice, where he trained between European track meets. The weather was ideal, the locale beautiful, but the rent was oppressive — $50 a night for a long jumper still trying to make a name for himself.
This summer, Quinley landed in Limerick, Ireland, where rain is a fact of life, but rent is just $75 a week. He shares a five-bedroom house with another American, two Africans and a Canadian, and uses the training facilities of the local university.
"The people here are amazing," he said of the hospitality.
By next summer, of course, Quinley hopes to reach Beijing.
"This year was about making the World Championships team. I was able to do that," he said, referring to the competition that begins Aug.25 in Osaka, Japan. "The next goal is to make the Olympics. I plan on doing that."
It won't be easy, and Quinley knows it. He is perhaps the fourth- or fifth-best U.S. long jumper, and only three jumpers will make the team. Quinley has an official best of 26 feet, 113/4 inches, although he reached 27-1/2 on a wind-aided attempt to place third at the USA nationals in June.
However, Quinley has long jump royalty in his corner. He returned from Europe this month to train for a couple of weeks in Los Angeles with Mike Powell, whose mark of 29-41/2 has stood as the world record since 1991.
"He thinks I can break his world record," said Quinley, planning to train full time next year with Powell. "He knows one of these days (the record) is going to be broken, and he wants to be part of the process. He wants to coach the guy who breaks it."
It all sounds a bit ambitious to Quinley, who acknowledged, "I still don't believe him."
When he had his 27-foot breakthrough, Quinley said he left the ground five inches before the front edge of the takeoff board. "It was a 28-foot jump," he said.
Or it could have been. It's Quinley's quest to make it happen for real.
Heather Petri
Born two months early at Children's Hospital Oakland, Petri arrived in the world 29 years ago weighing just 4pounds, then dropped to barely 2 before her lungs begun functioning properly.
"My mom thought I was going to be petite, but I grew up and I'm a big girl now," Petri said.
Now 5-foot-11, Petri also has helped the USA women's water polo program grow up. The former Miramonte High star, who plays the attacker position, was part of the silver-medal team in 2000 at Sydney in the sport's Olympic debut, and on the bronze-medal team at the 2004 Athens Games.
After winning the World Championships in Melbourne and the FINA World League Super Final in Montreal this year, the Americans have vaulted to No.1 in the world rankings.
"Winning the World Championships was huge — everyone in the world was playing and putting out their best team," said Petri, who also helped the U.S. capture gold at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro last month. "The way we're playing right now, the potential we have, I think we're the favorites to win a gold (at the Olympics) if all things align."
Beijing will be Petri's curtain call. She scored 96 goals in a decorated career at Cal and has spent the past seven years on the national team. She joins fellow Cal alum, Erica Lorenz, and Stanford grad Brenda Villa as the only two-time Olympians still active.
After two seasons playing professionally in Florence, Italy, Petri opted to stay home this past year, working as an assistant coach for Long Beach State. She wants no distractions as she prepares for her final Olympics.
"I still really love the sport. It's my passion," said Petri, who contributed six goals to the U.S. victory at the World Championship tournament. "The most important thing as an athlete is that you still feel challenged every day.
"I feel like I'm playing the best water polo of my career now."
Stephanie Murata
In a year or so, Murata will begin a new career, likely selling medical devices or pharmeceuticals. She will be 38 by then and done with a 13-year pursuit of her Olympic dream.
Murata, who grew up in San Mateo and attended Mercy High, is one of America's top female wrestlers. Ranked No.1 nationally at 48 kg (105 pounds), she comes off a bronze-medal performance at the Pan American Games and hopes to win a medal at the World Championships next month in Baku, Azerbajian, near Afghanistan.
All of it feeds her primary ambition, which simply has refused to dim.
"I think it's just because I've been so successful and always been so close to reaching my goal, which obviously is the Olympics," she said. "If I had not been so successful or had just been a mediocre wrestler, it might have been easier to quit."
Murata didn't begin wrestling until she was 22 and a senior at UC Davis. It was a lark, really, on the urging of a friend on the team. Murata had competed in soccer, swimming and track in high school.
"I trained for two weeks, and I went to my first tournament not knowing a thing. I was so sore the next day I could barely move," she recalled. "A lot of sports came pretty easy to me. Wrestling demanded a lot more discipline and perseverance."
So Murata persevered, winning eight national championships. For two years she was coached by Sergei Beloglazov, a two-time Olympic champion for the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and she has lived the past four years at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
Murata believes she's better than ever, even at age 37. "I used to think experience was overrated," she said, noting that her knowledge and technique continue to evolve.
A top-six finish at the World Championships next month would assure the U.S. of an Olympic berth in her weight class, but Murata still would have to win the U.S. trials in Las Vegas next June to earn that spot.
It would be no small achievement, given that 2004 Olympic silver medalist Patricia Miranda, a Stanford grad, will drop down to Murata's weight class because there is no 112-pound category in the Olympics.
"Patricia and I will push each other," Murata predicted. "The end result is whoever winds up going to the Olympics, she's going to have a really good chance of winning."
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Not a Female wrestling story but I like it so i added it.
by Ta Duy Anh 8.5.07
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During a trip to my native village to uncover my clan’s genealogy I was taken to a shrine dedicated to Lady Tran Thi Doan Trang. This small temple stood in the shadow of an age-old banyan tree by the river bank where most of us local kids used to come and play every day, rain or shine. When we were tired of frolicking, we hauled fresh, clean water from a nearby well.
While burning incense at the altar, I often wondered about the sacred young woman and why she was so respected in this region. Moreover, her name sounded familiar to me although it did not appear in my history books. Then I remembered that it was Mum who first mentioned her name in a story she told me about twenty years ago.
My home town was famous for wrestling. Every year on the sixth day of the first lunar month, the local authorities organised a wrestling festival. The story told by Mum happened a very long time ago.
In those days, Doan Trang was a beautiful young girl in her late teens. Strangely enough, whenever a youth came and asked her hand for marriage, she always shook her head. Every year she only appeared in public during this event. When the tournament came to an end, she withdrew into her home.
That year, the wrestling season was greater than ever. Well-known wrestlers came to our home town to compete. Usually, after a few combative days, there were some casualties. Therefore, those who attended the tournament were brave people who made light of death.
Prior to the festival, our village notables opened a contest to choose a talented athlete who might bring a laurel wreath to our small community.
On the third day and last day of fighting, there appeared a tall young man who squatted down in front of the grandstand where sat our local bigwigs. Usually such insolence would be severely punished. But he was forgiven.
Worse still, after each round, he slapped his leg and laughed contemptuously. The spectators showed their annoyance, except for just one person – Doan Trang – who he saw by chance when he gazed at the crowd. "Who is that comely maiden who admires me so much?" he asked himself. After years of martial arts practice and avoiding the fairer sex, he fell in love with her at first sight.
"Well done! Well done! But I want to measure my strength with you military officer," he shouted loudly.
To the surprise of the attendants, the master of ceremonies stood up.
"What’s your name, young man?" asked a juryman.
"I’m Binh, sir," the youth replied bending his head. At once he glanced at the fair lady as if he was going to say, "I’ll fight, not out of honour, but because of you."
She nodded her head as if she wished to say, "Yes, I see, I see."
The juryman sanctioned the fight.
"You officer, as a rule, have to compete with wrestler Binh, who’s just defied you," he said.
***
After greeting the spectator, the two competitors started their fight.
Although the officer tried to defeat him, Binh stood firm. All of a sudden Binh lifted the officer up onto his shoulder and ran three laps around the wrestling mat. When the officer declared himself beaten, Binh stopped at the centre of the arena and released his opponent there. After saluting the jury and the spectators he jumped up and landed in the same place, bowing his head.
The master of ceremonies stepped down from the stands, helped him up and led him to the jury with a broad smile. Refusing to accept the prize, he turned his head towards the stand where the beauty was elbowing her way out through the crowd.
"I know whom you’re looking for, my brave youth. Without your victory I don’t know whom I would marry her to," confessed her father, the village chief.
Binh prostrated himself on the ground and expressed his thanks.
***
In response to the wish of the jury, Binh agreed to join the all-region wrestling competition provided that Doan Trang was present at the event. Although an engagement had not been announced, Binh knew that his happiness lay in his triumph over his opponents. His longed-for laurel wreath would be his wedding gift to his future wife.
Accompanying him was his master who had taught him martial arts since childhood. Never had the tournament attracted so many superb wrestlers like that year. However, a new rule added a different dimension to the competition: a wrestler might beat his rival to death if the seemingly defeated wrestler refused to recognise that he was the loser.
After six days of fighting against well-known rivals, Binh managed to enter the final round to compete with a wrestler from the region of Son Tay. Regrettably, in the final he was not as lucky. He was lifted up by his opponent while the drumbeats resounded. Suddenly, they came to a stop and Binh’s master asked to halt the match. Consequently, Binh was allowed step off the mat and consult his manager.
"Why don’t you resort to your secret move?" asked Binh’s master angrily.
Binh stared at his old instructor in bewilderment. Then he glanced at Doan Trang who was now in great despair. He did not want to kill another man.
"At any cost, you must be the victor," urged Binh’s coach.
"Yes, Sir! I’ll obey your order."
***
Binh returned to the wrestling mat and calmly climbed up onto his opponent’s shoulder and stayed in the same position as been before. The spectators thought that Binh would accept his death. In the meantime, nobody paid any attention to Doan Trang who was praying. "I wish that he is not defeated," she said softly. To the surprise of onlookers, Binh rose up. One of his hands seized the hair on the top of his opponent’s head and with his other hand, he punched upwards at his opponent’s chin while jabbing his foot into his rival’s backbone. In a second, the man collapsed onto the ground and blood oozed out of his mouth and nose.
Binh was victorious. Walking unsteadily towards his master, he breathed heavily. He glanced at the crowd to look for his fair lady, but she was nowhere to be seen.
The next day Doan Trang’s body was discovered in the well close to the banyan tree by the river bank. Legend had it that Binh spent all tournament winnings on a shrine in her memory.
***
During my trip home to fill in our family tree, I remembered Mum’s story. I asked people about this tragic story. The keeper of the communal house in Ha Village clarified the story.
"In the reign of Emperor Quang Trung, or Nguyen Hue, one of his generals on the way to the ancient capital of Thang Long, took a rest at my village to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the surroundings.
"In the evening, during his stroll by the river bank, by chance he met a charming girl. She gave him a handkerchief stained with blood then disappeared immediately. He had this keepsake washed carefully, but the blood remained. Later, he unexpectedly dropped the handkerchief into the well. After he drew it back up, it was completely white. Early the next morning, he summoned all the old men and asked them about the origin of the well.
He reported the event to the king and requested the sovereign ordain Doan Trang as the Goddess of Happiness and the general himself took charge of building the shrine.
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Inter-district wrestling championship
The Hindu. Republication 8/6/07
Andhra Pradesh Wrestling Association will organise the inter-district championship for men and women and boys and girls in Nalgonda from August 10 to 12 in different weight categories.
The State teams to take part in the forthcoming Nationals will be picked based on the performances here.
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By ALISON KORN -- Sun Media 8/7/07
(Be guaranteed some names from this list won't medal -- and new heroes will emerge. That's why athletes hate these lists -- because they're only based on past accomplishments)
- Wrestling: Olympic medallist Tonya Verbeek and Ohenewa Akuffo are in Beijing right now at a training camp.