Kayla Jeffery (top) tries to flip wrestler Melissa Ashton as they practise at the Bloomfield Centre Wrestling Club. (Photo: Mike Dembeck)
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Olympic dreams
5 Alaskans hope to swim, row, wrestle and shoot their way to Athens
By BETH BRAGG
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: May 9, 2004)
Tela O'Donnell hasn't been to Alaska in 18 months. Stacey Borgman was away for 31/2 years before making a quick visit last fall. Derek Gibb makes it home a little more frequently, but he nonetheless is gone so much that when he returns, he complains about the cold.
Make no mistake, though. They love Alaska. They show off snapshots that are as pretty as postcards. They tell stories about slaying giant fish. They tell everyone who will listen about their home -- and if their dreams come true in the next several weeks, they'll get a chance to tell the world.
The three are Alaska's top homegrown contenders to make the U.S. team for the Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Along with UAF's Jamie Beyerle of Lebanon, Pa., they rank near the top of their respective sports:
• O'Donnell, a 21-year-old wrestler from Homer, ranks second in the nation at 55 kilograms (121 pounds) and will vie for one Olympic berth in that weight class. Also qualifying for the eight-person 55-kilo competition at the Olympic trials is Iris Mucha, a 19-year-old from Anchorage.
• Borgman, a 29-year-old rower from Homer, teamed up with Sarah Hirst of Seattle to win a national selection regatta last month in New Jersey. They head to Munich this month, where a top-four finish in women's lightweight sculls would secure them the Olympic berth.
• Gibb, a 23-year-old swimmer from Petersburg, helped a pair of Auburn relay teams set world records at this year's NCAA Championships. Individually, he ranks 16th in the world in the 50-yard freestyle and 19th in the 100 backstroke.
• Beyerle, a 19-year-old sophomore at UAF, won an NCAA title in air gun as a freshman and is ranked among the world's best in women's smallbore. At three recent World Cup events, she racked up three top-eight finishes, winning a bronze medal at one of them.
Beyerle came to Alaska because of the Nanooks' highly regarded riflery program, which won a sixth consecutive NCAA team title this year. O'Donnell and Gibb left Alaska to pursue their specialties, and Borgman discovered hers while attending college Outside, but each continues to proudly claim Alaska as their home state.
Borgman lived in Kotzebue until age 4, when her parents -- both teachers -- moved to Homer. She notes with irony that while she grew up on pristine Kachemak Bay, she learned to row in New York's murky Harlem River.
O'Donnell grew up on a small farm in the woods outside Homer, where she got tough by hauling firewood and carrying bales of hay for all the animals that shared a home with O'Donnell and her mother, Claire.
"It was a good fit for me,'' she said. "I grew up on East End Road where all the hippies live.''
She doesn't consider her mom a hippie, but she figures her friends from Outside might disagree. "Maybe to the rest of the world she is,'' O'Donnell said, "but not in Homer.''
O'Donnell and Gibb both spent numerous summers fishing. Gibb has experience salmon-seining and crabbing and hopes for a profitable merger between his aquatic interests. What better marketing opportunity is there for the fishing industry than a man who swims like a fish and also has fished for a living?
"If I don't make the Olympic team, I'll go back and fish on the Erika Ann,'' he said, referring to the boat he's worked on for several summers. At Auburn University, teammates are in awe of Gibb's Alaska roots.
"They think all the stuff I do is completely crazy and weird,'' he said. "I think the same about them. I got to visit a (teammate) in Trinidad and Tobago over spring break, and they drive on the wrong side of the road and go spear fishing.''
Tela O'Donnell, 21
Homer wrestler
Iris Mucha, 19
Anchorage wrestler
Forget the images that come to mind when you think about women's wrestling. For one thing, there's no mud.
Any stereotypes Tela O'Donnell may have had were eliminated when she moved into the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., more than a year ago.
O'Donnell grew up wrestling against boys, but now she's one of several woman at the center who hope to be on the U.S. women's wrestling team when the sport makes its debut in Athens. One thing she's learned since coming to Colorado Springs is you can't make assumptions about women who choose to wrestle.
"I think that a lot of people are often surprised by the girls around here, how normal-looking they are,'' O'Donnell said. "They're not too butchish. There's a lot of feminine girls. My friend Jenny is the girliest girl I know.''
O'Donnell and Iris Mucha are among eight women who will compete for one Olympic berth at 55 kilograms (121 pounds) at the May 21-23 trials in Indianapolis.
O'Donnell, a former collegiate wrestler at Oregon's Pacific University, ranks second in the nation in the weight class and was last year's national champion. Mucha, a West High grad who just finished her freshman year at Cumberland College in Kentucky, is the top-ranked collegiate wrestler at 55 kilos and placed seventh at the Olympic trials qualifier -- O'Donnell placed second -- to advance to the Indianapolis tournament.
Their main competition will be Tina George, the winner of the qualifying tournament. George gets a bye at the trials and will await the winner of a mini-tournament involving the other seven qualifiers for a best-of-3 showdown that determines who goes to Athens.
Mucha is considered a longshot to make the Olympics, while O'Donnell is considered the top contender along with George. Both Alaskans will continue to wrestle regardless of what happens in Indianapolis, Mucha at college and O'Donnell for the U.S. national team.
"My real goal right now is not to be Olympic champion, it's to be a very good wrestler,'' O'Donnell said. "I want somebody to be able to watch my wrestling on a video and say, 'That's good wrestling; she's always in position.' I'm not there yet. I have so much to learn.''
A wrestler since junior high, O'Donnell has long grown accustomed to the foul odor that comes from every wrestling room on the planet. It is an equal-opportunity smell, she said -- even a room full of girly-girls can stink it up.
"Truthfully, I don't even find it unpleasant anymore,'' O'Donnell said.
Maybe because she's experienced far worse working as a fisherman in the Homer area.
"I used to work on a driftnet boat out of Kasilof, and the worst smell in the world is fishing gloves,'' she said. "They get wet, then they dry in the sun, then they get fish on them, and slime and guts and blood, then they dry in the sun again and then they get wet and they're on your hands ... It's the worst smell in the whole wide world.''
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Wrestling takes hold among women
By Jody Jewers 5/10/04
Kayla Jeffery (top) tries to flip wrestler Melissa Ashton as they practise at the Bloomfield Centre Wrestling Club. (Photo: Mike Dembeck) |
HALIFAX — There’s no better time to be involved in amateur wrestling in Nova Scotia, especially if you’re female.
Tryouts for the provincial 2005 Canada Games team go this weekend at King’s-Edgehill School in Windsor, and for the first time, female athletes will compete in the Games.
The added interest is likely the main reason registration numbers are up locally and at the high school level.
“I used to play a lot of sports, but I’ve given up most of them for wrestling,” said 16-year-old Kayla Jeffery of Fall River, the reigning provincial high school 75 kg champion.
“I think it’s amazing that there’s going to be a Canada Games team. It’s going to be nerve-wracking, but it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance.”
More than 300 participants competed at last month’s high school provincials. Registration numbers at the Halifax Amateur Wrestling Club have doubled, reaching 45 this year.
“It can be done by anybody of any size or body type,” said club president Peter Coulthard.
“You might not be built like a hockey or basketball player, but you can always wrestle, because you’re matched up against people the same size as you are.”
There’s not a lot of cost involved — all you need is a padded mat, proper footwear and a singlet, or shorts and a T-shirt.
The sport is physical, but strictly regulated.
Competitiors can participate in two styles: greco-roman, where it is forbidden to grasp the opponent below the hips or use the legs, or freestyle, where use of the lower body as well as the upper body is permitted.
“It’s a largely misunderstood sport,” said Coulthard.
“There’s always that fear of getting hurt, but compared to most sports, you see very few injuries.”
More avenues
There are more avenues for women to compete at an elite level in the sport.
Women’s wrestling will join the men at this summer’s Olympics in Athens as a medal event. More than 80 nations sanction women’s wrestling for international competition.
“It’s a great way to keep myself in shape,” said Marcotte, a Grade 10 student at Lockview High School.
“I think it’s really helped me be more self-confident.”
Daniel Igali’s gold-medal victory for Canada at the 2000 Olympics has helped to boost the sport’s popularity among males.
National champion
Watching the Olympic competition inspired Lake Echo’s Ben Eaglestone to get involved, and although he’s been wrestling for only 13 months, he’s already a national champion, having captured gold in the cadet 95 kg class in April.
“I saw it on TV, and I thought it’d be something cool to do,” said Eaglestone, 15, a Grade 9 student at Graham Creighton Junior High School.
“I’d like to go as far as I can with it: keep going to nationals, and maybe make the national team. I’d definitely like to get a scholarship for university.”