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Betts likes challenges in her sports
LINDA HERSEY
Sports People 3/31/04
Krista Betts of Bass River is a talented teen with a winning attitude!
In Grade 9 French immersion at Bonar Law High School, this straight A student's favourite subject just happens to be French. She is also an athlete with a promising future.
"I played baseball on the school team this year," says Betts, "and I play in the summer for the sports association. My two main sports are baseball and wrestling."
Wrestling? You bet!
She began two years ago, realizing at the tender age of 14, that life begins at the end of our comfort zone.
"Everybody plays basketball," she says, "everyone plays hockey. When I first heard of wrestling, I thought I can't do it just because it is a challenge, it's a real challenge. It's hard on you mentally and physically, so there's a challenge in both ways."
Now a member of Team New Brunswick for the 2005 Canada Games, she is currently accepting invitations to various tournaments. She recently won a gold medal at the Atlantic cadet juvenile high school championships in Newfoundland in preparation for the nationals in Windsor, Ont. She is pulling out all the stops to be in top form, and a recent training camp in Florida also helped hone her skills.
Charming and straight-spoken, Krista Betts shares what she enjoys most about this physically demanding sport.
"The glory of just being there," she says of competition, "just being proud after you win, after you do good. When you work really hard for something, and when you achieve it. All through middle school I was told you have a chance for Canada Games, and now I'm almost there. It's a good feeling."
But it's not all gravy. Every successful athlete knows there are times when you have to dig really deep just to stay in the game. Positive self-talk is key.
"The hardest part is if you get your butt kicked or something," explains Betts, "or it's just really hard training. You just feel like giving up, but then I think well, I put so much time into it - and my mom's time and the coaches and everybody. You've just got to keep on going."
The daughter of Tony and Lisa Betts (sister Jenna and brother Garrett), she also finds time for the family's two horses, Duke and Pearl. The Betts are equally proud of all three children, and their eldest child is an excellent role model.
"She's very dedicated," says her mother, "and she keeps her marks up - she works very hard on her school work. Her priorities at her young age are in the right spot, and it makes a parent very proud. Tony and I are very proud of her, and I would do anything for her - take her anywhere to help her with what she has ahead of her."
And how does Krista Betts feel about the support that makes wrestling possible for her?
"It means the world," she says, "because if I didn't have my mom and my coach (Pat Scully), I wouldn't be here."
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Monday, March 29, 2004
By MARTY JAMES
Executive Sports Editor
Vintage High School's Jessica Hsieh ,won a national title Sunday in the 105-pound division at the U.S. Girls' Wrestling Association National Championships at Lake Orion, Mich.
Hsieh, ranked No. 1 going into the tournament and representing the Napa Valley Wrestling Club, followed up a 3-0 record on Saturday by blitzing past her opponents. Her first-day totals included a bye, a 6-0 decision and pin.
The annual tournament was held at Lake Orion High School.
Earlier this year Hsieh was named as the most outstanding wrestler of the Asics Napa Valley Girls Classic, held in January at Vintage. Hsieh went 3-0 and scored a 2-0 win in the finals. She was also third in the 103-pound class with a 3-1 record and two pins at the California State Girls Wrestling Tournament, held at Vallejo High's Bottari Gym. A tournament-record 202 wrestlers from throughout California and Oregon wrestled in either 16- or 32-man brackets. Kayla Chambers, the No. 3 seed, was fourth at 127 pounds at nationals. Chambers advanced past the first day, when she drew a bye, registered a pin and won by injury forfeit after leading 8-0.
Chambers took first place in the 122-pound division at the California State Girls Wrestling Tournament this past year. Chambers was one of three Vintage wrestlers who placed in the two-day tournament, leading the Crushers to a fourth-place team finish. There were 137 teams and over 200 athletes entered in the annual state-wide event, a showcase of the top girl wrestlers in California.
Michele Querin was 12th in her weight class at nationals; the top 12 place in each division. On Saturday Querin drew a bye, won by technical fall, and lost by pin and decision.
Diana Douglass was 1-2 and did not advance past Saturday. Hattie Borg also wrestled, but didn't advance.
Shelby Lanterman from West Park, wrestling in the elementary school division, was sixth in the round-robin format.
Coaching the team at nationals are Bob Musante, Marion Newman, and Vintage High graduate Nicole Mazzaferro, a 2003 High School All-American. Jim Lanterman, Vintage's wrestling coach, is also a NVWC coach.
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Wrestling Scribe Faults FILA Over Olympics Qualifiers
March 30, 2004
Posted to the web March 30, 2004
Solomon Nwoke
Secretary
General of the Nigeria Amateur Wrestling Federation [NAWF], Josephat Ochi has faulted the sport's world body, the Federation du Internationale Lufth [Wrestling] Associatione [FILA] over the organisation of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games qualifier. According to him, a situation whereby all countries have to fight for a slot in one place does not favour African countries and other developing countries of the world.
Ochi whose wrestlers could not qualify for the Olympic Games qualifiers recently held in Tunisia for the female and Spain for the men said the arrangement for the Games qualification was lopsided.
"We went for the Olympic qualifier in Tunisia, we also went to Spain to see our girls qualify for the Olympics, but none of our wrestlers could qualify. But that does not reduce the fact that we are the best in Africa. The arrangement made to qualify wrestlers for the Olympics is lopsided. It's tailored towards disadvantaging the African countries and other developing (countries) in the sense that I have never seen it before. It's the first time in the history of this Games that the world is aggregated to come and qualify at a particular place, irrespective of the differentiations in strength", Ochi said.
Stressing further, Ochi said, " wrestling did not start at the same time all over the world as a competitive sport, it has lasted for 200 years in some countries and we are just making up 20 years. And they are bringing everybody to qualify at a particular place, it was a very wrong arrangement".
However, notwithstanding the outcome of the qualification championships, Ochi said Nigeria still has a ray of hope of participating at the Games in the male category as one of the wrestlers was given a wild card in recognition of his consistency in the sport.
Ochi disclosed that, "there is a consideration being made to give us a wild card because Nigeria is the only African country that had gotten into the semi finals and final in the two championships. So I hope if they are going to give considerations to Africa, Nigeria will be number one, although, we are still to receive the papers backing it up, but on a gentleman's agreement, they looked at our performance and saw that we are very far ahead the rest of Africa.
They believe that we are worth being in the Olympics, but we are hoping that they are going to give us two chances, one in the male and one in the female".
The NAWF scribe also commended the Nigerian wrestlers notwithstanding their inability to pick a slot in the Games qualification.
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Letters - Refutes 'male sports' letter
033004 - Editor, Index-Tribune:
I was shocked when I read Michael Mulas' letter to the editor "Some sports for males only."
It was the most chauvinistic, antiquated sentiment I have ever seen expressed.
His opinions can only have stemmed from misinformation, with such quotes as "Girls have their own sports, let them play those sports." How, in such a supposedly educated and advanced society as our own, can opinions like these be manifested? The mere idea that there is such a thing as "girl sports" furthers these outdated ideas of traditional female roles, and proceeds to box in young women even more.
Yes, girls are not a physical match for some boys. Yet even then they should be given the chance to try out for sports like football and wrestling, and if they qualify, by all means let them play! If all weak males were forbidden from trying out for football from fear that they would get hurt, without a doubt the public would be outraged, demanding equal opportunities.
Why is it that women are supposedly inherently unable or unworthy?
Opinions like Michael's are valid, but what can such ideas be doing to the psyche of America's youth? Instead of continuing to hold people back based on sex, we should let their quality speak for itself.
Emma Cline,
15 years old
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