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Club: Saskatoon W.C.

Coach: Todd Hinds

Weight Class: 63 kg

Hometown: Saskatoon, BC

Birthdate: Jul 9, 1982

Viola, a native of Saskatoon, trains with the Saskatoon Wrestling Club at the University of Saskatchewan and is coached by Todd Hinds. At the 2003 World Championship, she won a bronze medal only one year after being a Junior National Team member. In 2003 Viola had a first place finish at the Canada Cup and a second place finish at the Pan American Games. In 2002 she won the silver medal at the FISU World University Wrestling Championship, was second at the Canada Cup and Hans von Zons and won a bronze medal in the World Cup. In 2001 she was 4th at the Junior World Championships. Her national record includes Junior National Champion in 2001 and 2002 and Senior National Champion in 2003.

Visit Viola's website for more information.

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Olympic Wrestling Profile: Tonya Verbeek

Club: Niagara W.C

Coach: Marty Calder

Weight Class: 55 kg

Hometown: Beamsville, ON

Birthdate: Aug 14, 1977

A native of Beamsville, Ontario, Tonya trains with the Brock Wrestling Club at Brock University, St. Catharines coached by Marty Calder. She has been one of Canada's most consistent performers over the past two years with gold medal performances at the 2003 Pan American Championship, 2003 Hans von Zons (Germany), 2003 New York Athletic Club tourney, 2004 Austrian Ladies Open and the 2004 Canada Cup. In addition, she was a silver medalist at the 2003 Pan American Games and finished second at the 2003 World Cup. Tonya has been a medalist at five consecutive Senior National Championships from 1999-2003 and was Espoir National Champion in 1995.

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COMMENTARY: McMann and Miranda have done more than medal

8/24/2004
John Fuller/TheMat.com

Finally, something good in the world is actually bigger than the Olympics.

This bigger doesn’t involve million-dollar endorsement deals, Nike shoes or spoiled athletes.

This bigger involves the advancement of life, and in this case – women.

On Monday night in Athens, Greece, two women’s wrestlers, both from the U.S., lost a gold medal. Sara McMann didn’t win a silver and Patricia Miranda did not win a bronze. They both lost gold.

But in the entire scheme of things, that does not matter. Neither woman knows it yet, but they’re medals were so much more than medals, even if the color was not yellow (to quote Terry Brands).

Young girls across the world watched four women win gold medals on Sunday night. These medals weren’t in track. They weren’t in gymnastics or even swimming. They were in wrestling.

Yes, that wrestling.

The physical, emotional battle that has existed even since Biblical days. McMann and Miranda, along with the 48 other women that competed in their first Olympic Games are now pioneers.

As the two U.S. women answered questions during press conferences, they had trouble conveying their feelings about their respective matches to the hoards of media in attendance.

However, when asked about the advancement of women’s wrestling, most every woman in the press conference, U.S. or foreign, jumped at the chance to speak. In most cases, tears wear still being dried from their cheeks.

“I’m very excited for my sport and the demonstration that women’s wrestling has put on. The Olympic Games is going to do leaps and bounds for the sport itself. I think adding us to the Games was just step one to legitimizing us as a sport,” Miranda said in her press conference.

McMann expressed many of the same sentiments.

All over the world last night, young girls watched as women battled for gold. They didn’t wrestle like men. They didn’t wrestle like women. They wrestled like warriors. Undoubtedly, many Olympic gold medalists were made last night.

But it wasn’t just the young girls that watched those matches. It was their fathers, and mothers, and brothers. An attitude is changing.

Maybe it has something to do with the Greek air. Maybe it has to do with the Olympic spirit.

Or maybe it is more simple then that. Maybe it has something to do with the hard work and effort that many of these women have put in. Maybe, as McMann eluded to, it has something to do with the women like Tricia Saunders, who battled so that these women in Athens could do what they are doing – fighting for Olympic gold medals.

Believers were born, and champions were made last night. And it didn’t matter if the U.S. women went home with no medals. They won’t understand that now, but when they have their own children, it will all make sense.

Whitney Houston was right. The children are our future. And it is that belief that makes the Olympics seem small in stature compared to what happened last evening.

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Wrestling has emotional hold on these women

August 24, 2004

BY RICK TELANDER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

ATHENS, Greece -- I walk into Ano Liossia Olympic Hall, and the first thing I hear above the dull roar of the crowd is a frantic, high-pitched screech.

Down on the center wrestling mat, a tiny woman in a blue singlet with two blonde pigtails coming out of her head like antennae is bouncing around as if she has stepped on a wasps nest.

It is the Ukraine's Irina Merleni. The 22-year-old, 4-11, 105-pounder from Minitskoye has just been declared the winner of the first women's wrestling event ever held at the Olympics.

It was a doozy, too -- a double-overtime thriller against Japan's Chiharu Icho.

It clearly has unhinged Merleni.

She yelps again, throws her hands in the air, then jumps into the startled referee's arms.

She clings to him for a moment like a koala bear on a eucalyptus branch, then drops off and runs around shaking the hand of everyone she sees.

Merleni will explain her actions later, saying through an interpreter, "I was obviously overwhelmed and surprised.''

But no more surprised than those of us who, until this day, had never seen women grapple outside of the random nightclub mud pit or Jello-filled wading pool.

But check all preconceived notions, ye who enter here.

Women's wrestling is serious as an eye gouge.

There were four weight classes contested in Athens -- from 48 kilograms (105.6 pounds) to 72 kilograms (158.4 pounds) -- and trust me, guys, you would not want to mix it up with any wrestling gal within 40 pounds of your weight or a hand reach of your neck.

Five-foot Patricia Miranda of the United States finished third in the 48-kilogram group, and she actually trained with and sometimes competed for the Stanford men's team at 125 pounds.

She beat the living crud out of her bronze-medal foe, France's Angelique Berthenet, 12-4.

Afterward the vocal and thoughtful Miranda, who starts classes at Yale Law School next week, was upset she missed the gold but pleased to be part of something ground-breaking.

"Speaking to what this does for my sport is far easier than speaking to what happened out there today,'' she said, referring to the gold she wanted so badly.

To her right on the dais sat the hyperglowing Merleni. And next to Merleni sat silver medalist Icho.

The poor Japanese woman, her black hair fluffed straight out like a midnight dandelion, looked so despairing, I was glad a hara-kiri sword was not nearby.

"I got silver and not gold, I think, for lack of my courage,'' Icho said, looking down as if into the abyss.

Even the bummed-out Miranda looked startled at that.

"That was a bad-ass answer, man,'' she whispered, frowning.

See, these women are tough. And resilient. Yeah, they get spread into unladylike poses, and their hands go where ladies' hands don't go, and their faces are sometimes busted up, and if they keep doing this, they'll end up with cheese-wedge ears like those of former NCAA wrestling champ and male coach Terry Steiner.

But they bounce back. Trivialities be damned.

The ladies only have been criticized and made fun of since they began their sport some 15 years ago.

The United States' 63-kilogram (138.6 pounds) wrestler, Sara McMann, could not stop crying after her gut-wrenching 3-2 loss in the gold-medal match to Kaori Icho, Chiharu Icho's big sister.

Even three hours later, back at the Olympic press center, McMann's eyes are still swollen and periodically wet.

Maybe this is a sexist thing to say, but I can't help noticing that McMann would be an attractive young woman if her face weren't cut-up and red and there weren't a raw gash across the bridge of her oft-broken nose.

"If it were only the prize, you could buy it,'' she says of the gold that barely eluded her grasp. "Wrestling is different from a race. It's not just a muscle doing a programmed action, it's so much of your personality. It's much more about the journey.''

She was ahead in her match 2-0, based on her aggressive takedown style. Then things got away from her. She starts to tear up again.

"It's painful, difficult and beautiful all at once,'' she says of the sport she loves.

Of the beating a wrestling gal's face takes, she says: "It's a small price to pay. It's worth it -- every joy, every heartbreak.''

Miranda understands both the exuberance of Merleni and the despondency of Chiharu Icho and McMann.

And she knows this sport is a perfect one for off-color hoots from the guys.

So be it. She is certain little girls everywhere would enjoy the sport, if they could just get past the stigma. After all, is a crotch hold any less embarrassing for fellows than for chicks?

"I can't count how many people were skeptical of my wrestling,'' she says.

Looking at her from certain angles, I can see that she, too, might have been glamorous, had she not been battered by her sport. Women who are not vain about their looks are tough to quantify. Unnerving, even.

I ask Miranda, then, if women should do every sport that a man does, from Olympic boxing to the decathlon to tree-chopping.

"Unless you can really convince me that it is something you need a penis to do,''' she says with a smile.

All right.

One, two, three. Pin!

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U.S. women's wrestler finds little solace in silver
Sara McMann misses a headlock, leading to a takedown and loss.

By Gary R. Blockus
Of The Morning Call 8/24/04

ATHENS, Greece | Sara McMann could be the new poster child for ''the agony of defeat.''

McMann, the 63-kilo wrestler for the U.S. in the first-ever Olympics for women's wrestling, came within one point of winning the gold medal.

With the match against defending world champion Kaori Icho tied at 2, McMann's attempt at a headlock slipped over the head of her Japanese archrival, and Icho capitalized by scoring a takedown with 20 seconds left in the bout to win the gold medal.

McMann found the silver medal to be no consolation as she continued to shed tears even 20 minutes after the bout.

''After it was over, I just felt,'' she said, and started to sob before continuing, ''I just felt like I worked hard, like I did everything I could and it just wasn't good enough.

''I don't think there's anything more painful in the world .''

McMann, who wrestled on the men's team at Lock Haven University, took a 2-0 lead in the opening period on a pair of takedowns, one scored after Icho was placed in par terre for passivity. But in the second period, Icho managed to tangle up with McMann, using an arm drag, fighting off attempted headlocks, and dropping her hip to get behind the first U.S. female wrestler in a gold-medal match.

Icho, through a translator, acknowledged that, ''I feel she is my best rival.''

Icho also said that she was inspired by words from her sister, Chiharu, who lost a decision to Irini Merleni of Ukraine for the gold medal at 48 kilos.

''She said to me 'Have courage and attack,' and at that point I was able to recover my courage and fight.''

Earlier Monday evening, Patricia Miranda became the first U.S. woman to earn a medal when she clinched the bronze in the 48-kilogram class with a 12-3 victory by technical superiority over Angelique Berthenet of France.

Miranda, a two-time silver medalist at the world championships, scored practically at will on Berthenet, stopping the bout in the fifth minute.

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Looking for change, wrestling eyes beach

By Gary Mihoces, USA TODAY8/24/04

ATHENS — Here comes beach wrestling, headlocks in the sand.
FILA, wrestling's world governing body, voted here to make major format changes starting next year for world and Olympic tournaments of the usual sort — indoor on mats. The aim is to jazz up the sport and appeal to television.

But at the bottom of a FILA press release was word that, "Beach wrestling will also be part of the new wrestling world."

Said FILA President Raphael Martinetti, "In many countries, for example in Africa, beach wrestling is a traditional sport. ... We don't want to copy beach volleyball, we take it up because it is a good idea."

Russ Hellickson, Olympic wrestling broadcaster for NBC Sports, chuckled aloud at that.

"I don't know where they're going. I'm not privy to any kind of decisions FILA would make," said a grinning Hellickson, a 1976 Olympic silver medalist and wrestling coach at Ohio State."

"They want to sell it more. ... We've got to get it in the public's eye," he added. "Every country has a folk style of wrestling. Have you seen schwingen in Switzerland? They wrestle in sawdust. When you throw the guy to his back, the thing to do is wipe the sawdust off his back and then they declare you the winner."

Changes for conventional wrestling that begin next year borrow from tennis and judo.

A match under current rules consists of two periods of three minutes each. You win by scoring more points or getting a pin. Under the new format, there will potentially be three periods of two minutes each. At the end of each period, a winner will be declared. First wrestler to win two periods wins the match, like a best-of-three set in tennis.

Like judo, wrestling also will hold the entire competition in a weight class in one day instead of the current two. "It will be more attractive for spectators as well as for media," Martinetti said.

Next up: beach Greco-Roman.

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