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New Ulm teen a long shot at Olympics women's wrestling, despite national standing

Jay Weiner, Star Tribune
May 21, 2004

I always told my girls they could do anything they wanted in life. So it would have been wrong of me to say, 'You can do everything you want, but you can't wrestle.' "

Sue Bernard, Olympic candidate Ali Bernard's mother

NEW ULM, MINN. -- The new face of one of the Olympic Games' most ancient sports lives in a sprawling house tucked among the elm trees along Hwy. 68.

It's the face of an aggressive, quick, strong teenage girl.

Ali Bernard, 18, is the poster child for the historic makeover that Olympic wrestling is undergoing: tagged along with older wrestler brother; began competing against boys at age 11, and beating them; wrestled for her high school team with continued success against boys; moved to competing against girls, and dominated, from Las Vegas to Istanbul.

Now, as the first U.S. Olympic trials for women wrestlers begin today in Indianapolis, opportunity knocks . . . but, unfortunately, in a limited way for Bernard.

She is the junior world champion and the U.S. senior national champ at 147 pounds.

But she is a long shot to make the Olympic team because her weight class won't be a part of the Athens Games this August.

The 147-pound class wasn't included in the schedule in Athens in an effort by the International Olympic Committee to contain the size of the Games. At the world championships, women wrestle in seven weight categories. In Athens, they will have only four.

"I knew from the start I was wrestling at a non-Olympic weight and that I was going to have to bulk up," Bernard said the other day in her family's dining room, munching on a chocolate-chip cookie to help her push up to the 158-pound class she'll compete in this weekend.

"We're just thankful they do have the four weights," said her mother, Sue Bernard. "At least we get our foot in the door."

Women's wrestling will be the only new sport in Athens.

"If you were to say 10 years ago that you were going to have four weights for women, people would have been happy with it," said Terry Steiner, the U.S. women's national team coach. "For now, it's OK."

Others in same situation

Bernard isn't alone in having to adjust her weight and strength upward. Jenny Wong, 22, the Woodbury High graduate who has been a U.S. standout for seven years, had to bump up in weight class, too. Wong was the U.S. champ at 112 pounds in 2002 and runner-up in 2001 and 2003. This weekend, she's going to compete at 121 pounds. Wong has been readying herself for the trials by competing at 121 all season; she finished third at nationals last month.

But for Bernard, her first match today at 158 pounds will be her first national-level match ever at 158. She'll face stiff competition at the higher weight; top-ranked Toccara Montgomery, of Cleveland, is a two-time world silver medalist.

Men's wrestling weight classes, which were as many as 10 in freestyle and 10 in Greco-Roman in 1996 in Atlanta, have also been reduced, to seven in each discipline.

It's all part of the IOC's efforts to control the Games' so-called "gigantism." Already, 10,500 athletes are expected to compete in Athens, or 4,500 more than were in Los Angeles 20 years ago.

As more sports have added women competitors and as new nontraditional sports such as badminton, table tennis, triathlon and mountain biking have swelled the schedule, the IOC has been asking international sports federations to contain the number of competitors at the Olympics.

Bernard seems undisturbed by her predicament, understanding that her age and skills might mean that 2008's Beijing Olympics were meant for her more than Athens.

After all, she noted, she didn't seriously start thinking about being an Olympian until, "I don't know, a week ago?"

She's been busy recovering from a broken bone in her hand, finishing up her senior year at New Ulm High and figuring out how to merge her college and wrestling aspirations.

They were aspirations that long ago overcame the snarls, trash talk, even forfeits, from opponents -- often directed by their parents -- who didn't want their boys rolling around with girls. But she got lots of support from friends, the Rolling Thunder wrestling club of New Ulm and family, especially her grandmothers, Marie Steinberg and Ann Bernard, who travel to her competitions and scream their heads off.

Today at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis she'll need all the grandmotherly cheering she can get to wind her way through the challenge ladder in hopes of making it to the 158-pound finals Sunday.

"Ali's not supposed to make the team this time," said national team coach Steiner. "She can throw caution to the wind. What an opportunity for her."

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Wrestler Embraces Her Latest Challenge in Life

INDIANAPOLIS — 5/21/04

Patricia Miranda's father threatened to sue officials at Concord, Calif., High if they allowed his daughter to wrestle on the boys' team.

Not if they excluded her, but if they permitted her to compete in the sport she values as "such an opportunity to look into myself" and he considers a distraction.

Jose Miranda, a social activist in his native Brazil, moved his family to California in 1978 for a better life. Patricia is the second of his four children, and to all he stressed the importance of schooling above everything, including wrestling.

"His line was that education is the ladder," she said. "It wasn't a gender issue. He was really worried that I'd be this lifelong athlete and I wouldn't continue my studies."

They made a deal: She'd maintain a 4.0 grade-point average if he'd let her wrestle. It worked for both parties until women's freestyle wrestling was added to the Athens Games, leading her to move to the U.S. Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, Colo., after her 2002 graduation from Stanford and defer enrolling at Yale Law School to pursue a spot on the Olympic team.

"He's pretty proud," she said, but added that he "gets all nervous" with talk of her competing through 2008.

First, she's concerned with making the Athens team, and she has a strong chance.

Miranda, who will be 25 next month, has twice won silver medals at the world championships in the 48 kg (105.5-pound) class, perhaps the most competitive in the small but growing world of women's wrestling. As the U.S. champion she has a bye through the two-day Olympic trials challenge tournament at the RCA Dome. On Sunday she'll wrestle the winner of the challenge tournament for a trip to Athens.

"It's pretty hard to describe in a couple of words how excited I am," she said Thursday. "A lot of the work is going to be done in Athens to get the sport more widely recognized."

Miranda endured harassment and taunting in high school, but she called it "character development" and said it inspired her to set her sights on becoming a conflict mediator for the United Nations. It also propelled her in a quest she began when she was 10 years old and mourning her mother's death.

"I wrote in my diary that one test is when I'm in my deathbed, how much did I explore myself? How much did I challenge myself?" she said. "For somebody to die having not gotten to know themselves is one of the big sins."

U.S. women's Coach Terry Steiner, aware that women's wrestling is a divisive topic among coaches and wrestlers who see Title IX as a killer of men's programs, said wrestling is better off for her presence.

"I believe in the sport and what it teaches, life lessons and life skills. Why do we want to limit it to half the population?" he said. "She's what the Olympics are all about…. Her life is about excellence. That's how she lives every day of her life."

Each U.S. champion in the 18 Olympic-qualified classes — seven men's freestyle, seven men's Greco-Roman and four women's freestyle — has a bye to Sunday's finals. Several notables must advance through the challenge rounds, including 185-pound freestyler Cael Sanderson, a world silver medalist last year who lost to Lee Fullhart at the U.S. meet, and Sydney Greco-Roman heavyweight gold medalist Rulon Gardner, whose injured wrist contributed to his loss to Dremiel Byers at the U.S. competition.

Gardner also faces emotional and mental obstacles.

"Everybody's going for him. Everybody wants to knock off the great American hero," said Andy Seras, the U.S. Greco-Roman coach. "Fortunately, he has a lot of experience….

"I know his hand is still bothering him, but we've got a national champion here who says his shoulder is not 100%," he said of Jim Gruenwald, a 132-pound Greco-Roman wrestler. "If you go up and down the line, not one person is 100%."

Going Swimmingly

Although it's widely assumed swimmer Michael Phelps will pursue Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in one Olympics, Phelps remains mum on the number of events he plans to swim in Athens.

His primary goal, he said during last week's U.S. Olympic team media summit, is to qualify for the U.S. team at the Olympic trials, July 7-14 at Long Beach. From there, he'll take it one step, or one gold, at a time.

"The goal I put out there is the goal of one gold medal," said Phelps, who holds world records in the 200-meter individual medley, 400-meter IM and 200-meter butterfly. "It's not going to be easy, but it's something I want to achieve and hopefully can achieve.

"I'm extremely hard on myself. I came home from Sydney with nothing, so bringing back a gold medal to the U.S. would be an honor for me and an exciting experience."

Phelps, who will be 19 next month, will compete twice before the trials. He'll swim this weekend at the Santa Clara Invitational and again at his home pool in Baltimore on June 12. In between, he'll train at altitude at the Olympic training center.

The Santa Clara meet affords him a chance to avenge his loss to compatriot Ian Crocker in the 100-meter butterfly at last year's world championships. It also will be his first big test since he became ill and pulled out of the 400 IM at a Grand Prix meet last month in Indianapolis.

"Being able, hopefully, to swim a full program out there and hopefully put up some fast times will give us a better idea of where things stand," he said of himself and his coach, Bob Bowman.

Here and There

Australian swimmer Grant Hackett, the 1,500-meter gold medalist at Sydney, will compete at the Janet Evans Invitational meet at Long Beach, June 10-13. Hackett, who also has won six world titles in the 1,500, will be joined by teammates Ian Thorpe, Michael Klim, Sarah Ryan, Petria Thomas and Craig Stevens. Thorpe plans to swim the 100-, 200- and 400-meter freestyle races.

The U.S. accepted a berth in the Olympic judo tournament in the men's 60 kg weight class after Cuba declined its spot in that class. The U.S. will compete in all seven weight classes and five of seven women's classes at Sydney. The spots will go to the winners at the Judo trials, June 5 at San Jose.

Only 84 days until the Athens Summer Games.

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On quest to win, she wrestled with secret
Olympic hopeful gained another title along the way -- mother

By BRIAN ETTKIN, Staff writer
First published: Friday, May 21, 2004

Colonie
Conrad and Nancy Stenglein thought they knew their daughter ... Which they did ... and they didn't.

She was a national wrestling champion who would win gold medals at the world championships. She was a Hudson Valley Community College student and waitress at Friendly's who coached Pee Wee wrestlers. She was dating her high school boyfriend and lived in her family's Colonie raised-ranch where she and her brothers had wrestled in the dining room as youngsters.

She returned home in April 1998 from the national University Games in Chicago, where she'd won the gold medal.

And she was nine months' pregnant.

What am I going to do?

Kristie Marano told no one her secret. She was a 19-year-old whose parents had supported her as staunchly as girders. She feared disappointing them, so she did nothing. She says she thought she was only three to four months' pregnant, because she hadn't experienced nausea and had gained only 12 pounds.

But she didn't make weight before one tournament. And while winning at the University Games, she looked fatigued and unfit to her coach, Joe DeMeo. Two days later he put her through a grueling workout during which she wrestled several of the most punishing males with whom she had trained.

"We're all beating up on her, she's taking it," DeMeo said. "She didn't stop. She wanted to keep wrestling, just keep wrestling."

She wrestled and said nothing. Because if she could ignore the secret growing inside her, well, then maybe it would go away.

"She blocked it out a long time," her mother, Nancy, said. "She didn't think about it. If I don't think I am (pregnant), then I'm not. I don't know how to handle it, so I'm not going to deal with it."

One night Kristie experienced severe back pain and stomach cramps. She says she tiptoed into the bathroom just after 5 a.m., took a warm bath, and then her water broke. An hour later, on April 15, 1998, a 6-pound, 8-ounce girl was born while Kristie's parents slept.

She cut the umbilical cord with sterilized scissors and cleaned the baby. She lay it on a layer of blankets on her hardwood bedroom floor. Then, in a knot of hormones, fear and confusion, she drove to Kmart to buy diapers, bottles and baby formula. The baby was still sleeping when she returned home. Then it cried. Startled by the sound, Nancy awoke, then entered Kristie's bedroom.

The secret was crying to be heard.

On Sunday, Kristie, now 25, will wrestle in the U.S. Olympic trials in Indianapolis. As the No. 1 seed in the 138.75-pound division, she will compete against the winner of today's and Saturday's single-elimination challenge tournament in a best-of-3 series. The winner will represent the United States at the 2004 Athens Games, where women's wrestling will debut in August with four weight classes.

The goal Kristie has trained years for will be decided in minutes.

She's won more wrestling medals at the world championships than any woman. Seven times she has wrestled at the worlds, and seven times she has medaled. Twice she has won gold, including last year. She will not choke on the momentousness of the moment, not if past is prelude to present.

"That's Kristie's strongest point," said Terry Steiner, USA Wrestling's national women's coach. "She is a competitor, period. You can be great every day, but if you're not great when you're supposed to be great, then you're not going to have much to show for it."

It's not that she doesn't fear failure.

It's that she confronts it, such as the time minutes before her first match at the 2002 world championships, in Greece, when Steiner saw her break down in the staging area and cry.

"I was like, how is this person going to get up on the mat and compete?" he said. "But that was all the emotion and fear coming out. When she stepped on the mat it was a completely different person. There were tears in her eyes, but it moves her forward.

"That's fear that's coming out of her ... everyone has fear," Steiner added. "How do you deal with it?"

For most of her life Kristie has overcome the fear, because Stengleins are supposed to be tougher than a tortoise shell. Her father served in the Air Force and competed in wrestling and judo, as his daughter would.

In six years of varsity wrestling, neither of Kristie's two brothers missed a match, so when older brother Matt suffered a severe ankle sprain, he wrestled through it, and when younger brother Josh should've been bed-ridden with a 103 fever, he didn't take a sick day.

Kristie? All she did was wrestle with a torn anterior cruciate ligament for six years before undergoing knee surgery.

"It was important to wrestle and really work hard at it and take the lumps," Conrad said.

When she wrestled at Colonie High School, her opponents and their coaches usually didn't take issue with this girl who was wrestling their boys. But in a match in the Mid-Hudson Tournament at Kingston High, knowing she wouldn't be a pushover and fearing the possibility of losing to a girl, Niskayuna senior Tony Stewart said he shoved her into the bleachers near the edge of the mat, drawing a flagrant misconduct penalty.

If others hadn't pacified Nancy, who was watching from the bleachers, Stewart might've had to wrestle a second female that day.

"She's a mom -- high-strung, nobody messes with my kids," Kristie said.

She's a mom, as Kristie would become that spring morning in 1998. And that thought had terrified her.

How many nights had the questions ricocheted inside her head?

How will my parents react?

Will I still be able to wrestle?

Will I still be welcome to live at home?

If you know how close-knit the Stengleins are, you may think those thoughts are crazy. But then, how else to explain why Nancy wasn't introduced to her granddaughter in a hospital delivery room, but in a shroud of anxiety?

Nancy now says she suspected her daughter was pregnant but didn't say anything, "because we waited for our children to come to us with their problems." She didn't tell Conrad, who says he hadn't a clue. So here they were, in Kristie's bedroom, the layers of her pretense peeled away until the truth was as naked as this newborn.

The Stengleins didn't scream or cry. After recovering from shock, their primary concern was getting Kristie and the baby to a hospital.

"My problem was I thought I was disappointing people, but that shouldn't have stopped me (from telling them)," said Kristie, who has been married to the baby's father, Chad Marano, for five years. "You don't know how things are going to work out afterward, if you were going to be able to continue (wrestling), a lot of support and stuff. ... I was definitely relieved. It wasn't that bad."

She acknowledges her behavior was "stupid" and that they were lucky. It doesn't take an MD to know that having your abdomen squeezed in an opponent's gut-wrench isn't the safest position if you're carrying a baby. There were no prenatal vitamins, no obstetrician appointments, no sonograms, yet no problems.

Sometimes kids do bad things because they can't fathom not being good.

"I think I had so much other stuff to concentrate on that I pushed it to the side more or less," Kristie said. "I think denial probably set in more than anything else. I don't even know. It's so long ago and so foggy. There's just so many ways that it could've been dealt with."

It's been six years and Kristie still feels uncomfortable discussing the events surrounding her baby's birth. She replies to questions by saying, "I don't know what I was doing" and "I don't know what I was thinking" a lot.

The night the baby was born the Stengleins and Kristie went out for dinner with the father -- Chad Marano -- and his parents. Among the topics discussed was naming the baby. Kristie liked the name Mikayla but was in the minority. They settled on Kayla.

Ten days after giving birth, Kristie won a gold medal at the national championships in Orlando, Fla. Her doctor said she could wrestle but told her to stop if she experienced cramping, as she did in her second match. She wrestled anyway. She says it was one of her best tournaments.

"It's amazing that she was willing to do that, and amazing that her father was willing to let her do that," said DeMeo, one of Kristie's coaches. "You love tough guys, and sometimes you find an over-the-top tough guy."

Kristie and Chad would marry on June 19, 1999, but they separated 16 months later. Kristie and Kayla, 6, live inColorado Springs, where Kristie is a resident athlete at the U.S. Olympic Training Center.

Knowing how hard it would be for his daughter to train for the Olympics while raising Kayla, Conrad moved to Colorado Springs to help last fall. They all share an apartment with Kristie's older brother, Matt, who provides additional support and also trains at the center.

Kayla, a kindergartner, often watches Mom at practice and matches, and calls out moves and holds she thinks Mom should apply. Whereas Kristie behaves shyly in the company of strangers, Kayla's as outgoing as a club DJ. One Christmas, Kayla unwrapped a karaoke machine, grabbed the microphone and danced in a flashlight's glow.

That's Kayla, who one day will be told she was Mommy's best-kept secret.

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First step a doozy for these pioneers
Contingent of local wrestlers will compete in Olympic trials for women

Friday, May 21, 2004
ABBY HAIGHT

Kristin Fujioka finished her last spring final -- Spanish -- on Wednesday, then turned her attention to making history.

The Pacific University junior will be among the groundbreakers who hope to be the first women to wrestle in the Olympic Games this summer in Athens, Greece.

Fujioka, who wrestles at 105.5 pounds, plans to soak in the experience of the U.S. Olympic trials in wrestling in Indianapolis, which begin today and conclude with the best-of-three wrestle-offs Sunday.

"At first, I was thinking I wasn't going to go," said Fujioka, weary after a long season in which she earned all-America honors with a second-place finish at the Women's Collegiate National Championships. "But I thought, 'Whoa, this is a great experience, to go and be in that first group.' "

Twenty years after the debut of the women's marathon, another ancient Olympic sport will adopt a 21st century look at the birthplace of the Games. Women will wrestle freestyle in four weight classes; men wrestle seven weight classes in Greco-Roman and freestyle.

Women's wrestling is the only new sport at the Athens Games.

Seven women with ties to Pacific University will compete at the trials. Na'Tasha Umemoto, 17, a junior at David Douglas High School, also will compete after winning the U.S. championship at 130 pounds, which is not an Olympic class. She probably will wrestle at 121 pounds at the trials.

Pacific, a liberal arts university in Forest Grove, has been at the forefront of college women's wrestling and has one of seven varsity programs in the country. Only Hawaii and Texas have state high school championships for girls.

The Pacific program was pioneered by Jill Remiticado, a state high school champion from Aiea, Hawaii, who trained with the men's team. Three years ago, Remiticado and other women started a club program. Four of those club wrestlers -- Katie Kunimoto, Kaci Lyle, Tela O'Donnell and Sally Roberts -- quickly moved on to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., and will be among the favorites at the trials.

Pacific started a women's varsity team two years ago. Scott Miller, who coached varsity men for 11 years at Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C., and Syracuse (N.Y.) University, came out of retirement to become coach of the Boxers' men's and women's programs.

"We're one of the premier sports here, and that's a neat situation," Miller said. "At other schools, it's football and men's basketball. Here at Pacific, it's men's and women's wrestling. People follow it."

And young wrestlers are drawn to the school.

Fujioka grew up practicing judo in Kaneohe, Hawaii. She decided to try wrestling as a high school sophomore.

"I just wanted to play a sport, but I'm not that coordinated with ball sports," she said. "I liked the one-on-one competition. You're out there all by yourself."

Fujioka is one of the steadiest wrestlers on the team, Miller said.

"She's doing the job," he said. "She's the hard-hat lady for us. She just quietly wins matches, quietly becomes an all-American."

Freshman Elizabeth "Kapua" Torres is more explosive, the most talented wrestler on the team and one who could be an Olympian in four years, Miller said.

"She's got unbelievable quickness, and she's got this hunger to learn," Miller said. "She wants to be on the mat."

The daughter of a wrestling coach, Torres' earliest memories mostly are around the wrestling mat.

"I was a statistician before I wrestled," said Torres, who grew up in Kahuku, Hawaii. "So I was around it for a long time before I got bored and decided to try it."

Torres had to juggle finals, moving out of her dorm room and training -- and dropping weight from her normal 112.5 pounds to 105.5 -- with the excitement of the trials.

"I'm going into the trials thinking of it as a learning experience," she said. "To me, it's a real privilege to go to the first Olympic trials.

"I'm going to wrestle my heart out, but also I'm looking at it for the experience."

Danielle Hobeika, a first-year assistant coach at Pacific, knows it will be difficult to advance out of the challengers' bracket at 121 pounds. Wrestlers from the next higher and next lower weights will be competing at that Olympic class.

"There's going to be a lot of good wrestling," said Hobeika, who wrestled on the men's team at Harvard and is in her third year of coaching. "I'm not looking at the big picture. I'm looking at the small things. I'm not thinking about winning, because I don't know how easy that will be. But the little things -- that I can work with."

Miller said he thinks Hobeika has a chance to advance in the field.

"She's a very focused woman," he said. "She knows all her strengths and weaknesses, and she's very good at playing to her strengths. Danielle is very good, for six minutes, at staying within her game plan."

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Plenty of Firsts for Women at Olympic Wrestling Trials

By DAMON HACK: May 22, 2004

NDIANAPOLIS, May 21 — Before she ever donned a singlet for her country, Tela O'Donnell worked on a drift net boat in Homer, Alaska, trolling for salmon in Kachemak Bay, connecting with the rhythms of her hometown.

She liked fishing better than playing sports, especially when the boat was full. The quarter-mile-long net could drag up enough fish to sell at market and eat at suppertime.

"When it's a good day, a good season," O'Donnell said Friday, "I get spoiled."

O'Donnell is one of more than 40 women competing in the three-day United States Olympic wrestling trials at the RCA Dome, chasing a trip to the Olympics in Athens, where women's freestyle wrestling will be conducted as an Olympic sport for the first time.

The 21-year-old O'Donnell, who competes for the Dave Schultz wrestling club, moved on to Saturday's semifinals with a 14-3 victory over Grace Magnussen, also of the Dave Schultz club.

As men and women competed simultaneously, using four mats spread across the arena, the enthusiastic crowd shifted its attention to athletes of different sizes and talents, depending on the tension of the matches. When Leigh Jaynes of the New York Athletic Club slapped hands with Tina Arnds of Missouri Valley around 10 a.m., the first women's wrestling match at a United States Olympic Trials had begun. Arnds scored 3 quick points with a takedown, but Jaynes notched 5 unanswered points to win by 5-3 in a 63-kilogram (138.6-pound) preliminary quarterfinal match.

Jaynes said she did not think about history during the match, if only to stay focused on victory. But she appreciated being a member of the Olympics' newest sport and one of the world's oldest.

"I've always thought that we, as a whole, are pioneers," Jaynes said. "There are a lot of firsts. And there are going to be more firsts after that."

Jaynes had to survive wrestling on the Rancocas Valley High School boys' team in Mount Holly, N.J., where she was told she would not last two weeks in the wrestling room.

"I was like, `Yeah, right,' " she said. "Now, it wasn't easy. They beat me up a lot, but I'm a lot stronger for it."

O'Donnell, who is the second-ranked United States wrestler at 55 kilograms (121 pounds), admits that she became a competitor almost by accident. For much of her youth she avoided sports as best she could.

"I tried volleyball and I wasn't very good at it," O'Donnell said. "I hated P.E. I just stayed in the bathroom because I wasn't competitive. I grew up with a single mom and I never learned how to throw or catch. Then, in junior high, I got into different sports and I had a teacher who taught you how to be competitive against yourself."

Wrestling, O'Donnell said, came about mainly because she excelled at a sport that accentuated physicality.

She had strong legs, arms and hands, which she credits to her outdoor upbringing. One of her earliest memories is of riding her pony, Wingo. Fishing was an endeavor that went perfectly with Alaska's long summer months.

And at Homer High School, O'Donnell was good enough to wrestle — and beat the boys.

"I had a real physical lifestyle," she said. "Out in the woods, we had sheep and you'd carry logs and work on the house. It was real physical labor. Like a lot of the girls, I started wrestling in high school or junior high with the men's programs. Women can be pretty competitive because the boys haven't turned into men."

Even in the midst of an intense weekend of competition, O'Donnell carries a playful air away from the mat. As a youngster, O'Donnell and her mother, Claire, and a few cousins once walked the streets of Homer for hours to count the out-of-state license plates on cars visiting the town, population 5,000.

They counted 48, minus Hawaii and another state which she said she had forgotten.

"But there were license plates from Caribbean countries, too," O'Donnell said.

At the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, where she is studying biology, O'Donnell also plays the guitar. When asked how to pronounce her first name, she answered like a person who has strummed a few tunes.

"Tela," she said, "like Layla."

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Marano Moves Up, Not Out, of Olympic Trials

By ALAN ROBINSON
The Associated Press 4/22/04

INDIANAPOLIS -- Two-time world champion Kristie Marano unexpectedly didn't make weight Friday and was forced to abandon her No. 1 seeding at the U.S. Olympic wrestling trials.

After a few minutes of disappointment, she set out on a different route to the first women's Olympic wrestling competition in Athens.

Marano was about a pound overweight for the 1383/4-pound class, thereby making Sara McMann top-seeded at the weight. That allowed McMann to advance directly into Sunday's final against the winner of the two-day challenge tournament that began Friday.

The mini-tournament winner in each of the seven men's freestyle, seven men's Greco-Roman and four women's weights takes on the U.S. national champion Sunday for a trip to Athens.

While McMann gets to rest up, Marano is wrestling up at 1581/2 pounds, where she was a 10-0 technical fall winner Friday night over Elena Mena. If Marano can win two matches today despite giving up as much as 20 pounds in each match, she will meet two-time world silver medalist Toccara Montgomery on Sunday.

In a sport where even an extra pound or two of muscle can make the difference between winning and losing, Marano doesn't think it's a big deal she suddenly must take on much bigger wrestlers.

"Getting to 63 kilograms (1383/4 pounds) is tough for me . . . and I feel confident at the (higher) weight," said Marano, who is trained in judo and is one of the most physical women's wrestlers in the world. "I really weigh 150, and I've wrestled big before."

Moving up isn't exactly new to Marano, either.

She lost to McMann in last year's world team trials at 1383/4, but went on to become a world champion at 1471/2 pounds, a weight not competed in the Olympics, after beating Katie Downing in a wrestle-off for the U.S. team berth.

Marano doesn't think it's a disadvantage that she must wrestle while Montgomery sits and waits.