News Page

Watertown female wrestler competes for Olympic trials

wsfb.com 5/24/04

Indianapolis (AP) -- A young female wrestler from Connecticut will not be going to the Olympics this year but she has made a big debut on the professional circuit.

Seventeen-year-old Stefanie Shaw has been wrestling on the Watertown High School boys junior varsity team, and has been wrestling against boys since she was 7.

She competed in the U.S. trials for women's wrestling in Indianapolis last night. She upset third-ranked Sally Roberts 4 to 2 at 138 and three-fourths pounds. But she lost 5-to-4 to Alaina Berube, who will now compete for a trip to Athens.

Shaw was unranked going into the event. It was the first time she faced a national-level women's playing field.

----------------------------------------------

Oh, baby: Wrestler's true tale remarkable

Mike Downey

May 23, 2004

INDIANAPOLIS -- When she wrestled in Chicago, she was nine months
pregnant … and hadn't told anyone.

She won.

Then she went home to New York and gave birth. She delivered her own
baby.

Ten days later, she wrestled again.

And won.

Kristie Marano's is a story worthy of "Oprah." It is unlike that of
almost any world-class athlete.

Yet hers is not the only remarkable life among the men and women
entered in the competition here at the U.S. Olympic Wrestling Trials, including
some who on Sunday will try to qualify for a trip to Greece and the debut of
a new Olympic sport, women's wrestling.

Women such as:

Patricia Miranda of Colorado Springs, the U.S. national champion at 48
kilograms (105.5 pounds), whose Brazilian-born father once threatened
to sue if Patricia's school did let her wrestle on the boys team. He wanted
his daughter off the team, not on it.

And Stefanie Shaw of Waterford, Conn., who drew No. 1-seeded Sally
Roberts, world bronze medalist, as an opponent in Saturday morning's challenge
round at 63 kilograms (138.75 pounds) and scored a huge upset victory … quite
a feat for a 17-year-old high school junior.

Or men like:

Ramie Mohlman of Lantana, Fla., who competed (but lost) Saturday at age
42, even though in the late 1980s he had open-heart surgery and was told
never to wrestle again.

And the most famous of amateur grapplers, Rulon Gardner, whose 2000
Sydney Olympics gold medal—won against a previously invincible foe—gave him
legendary status in his home state of Wyoming and turned a Greco-Roman
super-heavyweight into an unlikely American hero.

Since then, the 32-year-old Gardner has lost a toe to frostbite, been
in a motorcycle wreck and had metal pins placed in a dislocated right wrist,
yet here he was Saturday, struggling to try to make it to Athens.

"I have 32 years of wisdom and moves," Gardner said at the RCA Dome
after pinning his foe in a morning match. "And if I don't use them, I may
never use them again."

Gardner continued to wrestle despite the great adversity that came his
way.

But if ever a wrestler figuratively met his match, Gardner's various
ordeals seem nowhere near as astounding as those of Marano, a 25-year-old whose
background reads like pulp fiction.

As a girl, Kristie Stenglein wrestled against boys in school. That she
could handle.

Her physical prowess, however, did not extend to taking proper care of
herself.

So lacking in sensibility was she that in 1998, when at age 19 she came
to Chicago for the national university games, she suspected she was three
months pregnant, not nine.

At first, whatever nausea she experienced, she ascribed to illness.
Whatever weight gain occurred was so slight, it didn't show. Kristie still
qualified for her 138-pound weight class.

Victorious, she flew home to New York, went to sleep and was awakened
by a pain. Then her water broke.

Terrified but too ashamed to wake her parents, Kristie proceeded to
deliver her own baby in the bathtub. She found scissors and cut the umbilical
cord. Then, unbelievably, she drove to a nearby Kmart store and bought
diapers, leaving the baby at home.

The girl, 6 pounds 8 ounces at birth, is named Kayla and is now in
kindergarten. Kristie later married the baby's father and took his
surname, Marano.

Ten days after giving birth, Kristie wrestled in a national competition
in Orlando, winning another gold medal.

Frontier women had nothing on her.

It is now six years beyond that bizarre experience. Although she still
weighs under 140 pounds, Kristie Marano had to compete in the
66-kilogram (158.5-pound) division at these Olympic trials rather than in her usual
138-pound class, where she is a two-time world champion.

Why?

Because at the official weigh-in, she showed up slightly overweight.
Copyright © 2004, The Chicago Tribune

---------------------------------------------

Miranda making name for herself

By Jay Heater 5.23.04

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

INDIANAPOLIS - At 1051/2 pounds, Patricia Miranda dreams of being a political heavyweight. Oddly enough, that push might begin today at the U.S. Olympic Wrestling Team Trials at the RCA Dome.

If the No. 1-seeded Miranda can win her best-of-three series against Hawaii's Clarissa Chun, she will earn a spot on the Olympic team along with the notoriety that goes with being a participant in the first women's wrestling competition ever at the Olympic Games.

"I never dreamed of being an Olympian," said Miranda, a Stanford graduate who grew up in Saratoga. "I dreamed of being the governor of California."

Already accepted into Yale Law School, Miranda is stacking together credentials that should help her launch a political career. Of course, being a renowned athlete shouldn't hurt her attempts to realize that dream.

Those who have wrestled Miranda consider her to be somewhat an Arnold Schwarzenegger. She has dominated in the sport's lightest weight class, winning the past three national championships.

"She is the icon," said Chun, who has finished second to Miranda at the last two national championships. "She is a very physical wrestler and she has great intensity. She cuts a lot of weight and she is very strong. I'm going to have to use my motion."

If Miranda does head to Athens, Greece, with the U.S. Olympic Team this summer, she should make a great spokeswoman for the new event, and that hasn't gone unnoticed by USA Wrestling. Already, she handles many media requests as she has become the face of women's wrestling in this country.

"I'm very excited about representing us in Greece," she said. "I think we are going to do very well and, you know, the American public likes winners. This would be a real priviledge."

NOTES: Walnut Creek's Grace Magnussen won one bout, decisioning Cheryl Wong 5-0 in the 121-pound consolation bracket before being eliminated from the tournament when she was pinned by Marcie Van Dusen at the 3:48 mark. Magnussen finished 2-2. . . . Rulon Gardner's right wrist was heavily bandaged after being dislocated last month during a pickup basketball game, but he still won his two challenge tournament matches. Gardner, seeking a second Olympic gold, meets Dremiel Byers, a U.S. Army staff sergeant who beat Gardner 3-1 in last month's U.S. nationals. The winner of the best-of-three trials final goes to Athens. . . . There will be another significant rematch today when Cael Sanderson, the most successful wrestler in U.S. collegiate history (Iowa State), goes against former college rival Lee Fullhart.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Women wrestle for spots in Athens

By PETE DIPRIMIO 5/23/04

The News-Sentinel (Fort Wayne, Ind.)

INDIANAPOLIS - Fifteen minutes after the brink, eight hours before the fall and Marine Sgt. Miriam Jenkins seemingly has it all.

Here, in her U.S. Olympic Team Trials wrestling debut, she is unbeaten, unbowed and unshaken in her belief that anything is possible - even an Olympic berth, perhaps a medal.

"This is the real thing," she says from the floor of the RCA Dome. "I'm just as good as anybody else."

The Olympics are offering women's wrestling for the first time and Jenkins is focused on a trip to Athens. That means winning her 48-kilogram (105.5-pound) class - six six-minute matches in three days.

"In high school I used to joke that I'd be in the 2004 Olympics," she says. "That was before women's Olympic wrestling was set in stone. When it happened, I thought, now it's there. I can do it."

Jenkins, the fifth of nine children raised by a single mother, has thrived on can-do tenacity. It helped her become the first Florida high school girl to place in the boys' state meet (eighth at 103 pounds with a 35-17 season record).

"That was my first 15 minutes of fame," she says.

Jenkins' quest for Olympic Trials fame nearly ended before it began. She fell behind Kristin Fujioka 7-0 in her opening match before rallying for a pin. That earned her a quarterfinal berth against Mary Kelly, a wrestler she had beaten multiple times before en route to becoming the nation's third-ranked 105.5 pounder.

Those victories had come before she lost nine months of training because of the war in Iraq. She was stationed in Kuwait and then Iraq with the 9th Engineer Support Battalion, Bulk Fuel Company, before returning last summer.

"We did refueling, everything from kerosene lamps to jets," she says.

They did everything except what Jenkins most wanted to do.

"It sucked for me because it was right in the middle of wrestling season. It was the year before an Olympic year and I couldn't get on a mat."

Still, she says she's better for serving.

"I wasn't scared over there. My job was very important. But it made you realize life is dangerous. You could die. You could go to the Porta-John and boom, you're gone. It happened when I was there. It's happening now."

Jenkins is half a world away from that, enjoying the possibilities. So what that Kelley is now the U.S.'s third-ranked wrestler and if Jenkins gets past her, there is second-ranked Clarissa Chun and if she gets past her, there is two-time World silver medalist Patricia Miranda.

She's faced higher stakes.

"My unit is going back to Iraq," she says. "If I make the Olympic team, there's no chance I'd go with them. I'd be better for the Marines in Athens."

Jenkins flashes a smile.

"I plan on going to Athens."

Brandy Rosenbrock shatters the perception that women aren't tough enough for wrestling. The 19-year-old Michigan native has a cut on her cheek, a stud in her tongue, a tattoo on her back and a fire in her eyes. She has overcome three- and two-point deficits to dominate Shelly Ruberg in a preliminary 63-kilogram (138.75-pound) match and if she now faces a wrestler_Alaina Berube_she has never beaten, she concedes nothing.

"This time I like my chances," Rosenbrock says.

It isn't enough. Rosenbrock is pinned by Berube and will have to wait until 2008 for her next Olympic chance.

That she has that chance in a sport that remains male dominated is its own reward. Rosenbrock, a former cheerleader and dancer, has overcome the perception that wrestling isn't for women.

"Everybody telling me I couldn't do it made me want to do it even more. That's how I excelled."

While female numbers are growing_the National Federation of State High School Associations reports there were 3,769 female prep wrestlers nationally last year, up from 112 in 1991 (Indiana High School Athletic Association officials estimate 20 girls wrestled last year) -- only Texas and Hawaii offer girls' state tournaments.

That means girls must compete against boys and while boys who lose sometimes struggle with it_"One guy was (ticked) off at me for two years after I beat him," Jenkins says_the trouble is more often with outsiders.

"The parents were bad," Jenkins adds. "I beat one guy and his parents made such a big deal about it. I felt sorry for him because he had to go home with them listening to that.

"After I'd beat guys, some people would make fun of them. They'd talk nasty. They'd talk trash. It was the first time I'd experienced prejudice about being a female wrestler."

Now the obstacle is strong female competition. The U.S. is a world power despite not fielding a national team until 2002. The best, Rosenbrock says, is yet to come.

"I think it's going to take off. It's going to be big."

Duty drives the 24-year-old Jenkins. She will remain a Marine until at least 2006, and "I could see me doing this for 20 more years. In the Marine Corps, you can be an athlete and serve your country."

Jenkins is still an athlete, but no longer an Olympic competitor. Her dream ends with a 9-2 loss to Kelley. A return to Iraq is likely.

"I've got no complaints," she says. "I'm a Marine first and a wrestler second."

Sometimes, it seems, you can have it all.

-----------------------------------------------------------