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WOMEN TAKE WRESTLING SERIOUSLY

By LENN ROBBINS
August 23, 2004 --

ATHENS — If you think women's freestyle wrestling isn't to be taken seriously, don't share those sentiments with the men.
For the first time in history, women's wrestling is an Olympic sport and the U.S. men are backing their women all the way. The men delayed their morning workout about 30 minutes yesterday so they could watch the women's opening-round matches.

"We have a brother-sister relationship with them," said men's heavyweight contender Kerry McCoy of Long Island. "Sometimes you have your disagreements, but they're our little sisters and we want U.S. wrestling to win as many medals as possible."

The women did their part yesterday as Patricia Miranda (105 pounds) and Sara McMann (138.75) won their pools to advance to the semifinals. Miranda, who won all three of her matches, will face three-time World Champion Irini Merlini of Ukraine this morning, whom she lost to in the 2003 World Cup finals.

"That's a long time coming," Miranda said of the rematch. "The last time I wrestled her was in New York. Previous to that was in Russia. We've split 1-1. She's been a dominant force. She's a very good wrestler. It's just a real redemption. I'm really glad to get to bang heads with her."

McCann, who lost her last match in the qualifying round but still won her pool, learned her lesson. She won't have much crowd support today when she faces Greece's Stavroula Zygouri in the semis.

"I wrestled not to lose, which is a good lesson for other wrestlers," she said.

In McCann and Miranda, U.S. wrestling couldn't have two better athletes representing the sport and their country. McCann's an attractive brunette who says women wrestlers don't have to have two teeth and look like a hunchback. Miranda is a Stanford grad who's been accepted to Yale Law.

"I've seen them come in with cauliflower ear or gashes on their forehead," McCoy said. "They're athletes. They love the sport and they pay the price."

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No silver lining for being second best

Aug 24, 2004

ATHENS -- Sometimes the Olympic medal stand has been improperly constructed and we're left to wonder why the silver platform stands above the bronze platform. Surely there must be some mistake.

Surely somebody erred, because we see the silver medallist and see her melancholy sob go right on through to her quivering shoulders under her U.S.A. wrestling suit. Her eyes look like two strawberries.

She walks like a zombie through the arena with the other medalists, posing for photographs without ever looking at the cameras.

Sara McMann's smile has left Athens.

Now check out the bronze medalist on the lower tier. She beams. She enters the interview room after the first medal presentations in Olympic women's wrestling history, and she promptly hugs a French countrywoman, a bronze medalist in another weight group.

Lise LeGrand says wrestling "has done fantastic things for my personality. I was very shy, and it has brought me out."

She sits down with a translator behind a microphone. They smile.

Now here comes McMann into the interview room, a haunted silver medalist in the 139-pound division, a runner-up to Japan's Kaori Icho by 3-2 after leading 2-0.

She sits down, and somebody asks about her devastated countenance. She leans toward the microphone. She pushes the little button that activates the microphone.

She says, "I don't think there's anything more painful in the world."

A stirring evening has .morphed into a vivid pageant of the wonderfulness and horribleness of being an elite athlete, a primer on how the distance from silver to gold can torture while the distance from bronze to gold can relieve.

The newest sport of the Games has echoed the most ancient athletic themes and prompted American Patricia Miranda to describe the "sweat running" and "the pain on the faces" and the "going to the last second" and "the triumph and the tragedy."

Then again, Miranda could find the perspective to describe. In the 106-pound division, she'd been shrewd enough to win soothing bronze rather than galling silver.

Thereby could her voice hold up where McMann's cracked amid devastated answers and where yet another silver medalist made McMann seem like Carnavale in Rio -- for, you see, Kaori Icho's sister Chiharu had lost in the 106-pound division in a manner bound to turn up in many a sleep's closing nightmare.

She and Ukrainian gold medalist Irini Merleni had tied, 2-2, after the six-minute regulation. They had tied after the three-minute extended period. They had tied and tied and tied until they could not tie anymore and referee Georgios Chamakos had to choose between them.

He had to bring them together, and he had to hold their wrists, and he had to raise one of their hands skyward.

Now, we all know where the gold-medal platform stands. We all know it knows no nuance, no structural inadequacy. We know because when Merleni felt her hand going upward, she embarked on an unforgettably graphic Olympic mirth march, reminiscent of sobbing wrestler Kurt Angle at Atlanta 1996.

She started practically heaving tears. She jumped into the arms of the referee. Repeat: She jumped into the arms of the referee.

She ran to the edges of the mat, shook the hands of all the judges.

When the International Olympic Committee suit hung a medal around her neck, she hugged him -- tightly. She sobbed into her new bouquet of flowers.

Clearly, she won gold. But look barely below to that tier far too tantalizingly close to the top, to a Japanese face devoid of all expression and swimming blankly in regret.

Chiharu Icho said through an interpreter, "I think for me the finals ended up in my winning a silver medal instead of a gold medal for lack of my courage."

The interview room deadened a bit.

She said, "I'm rather worried and I feel a little bit sad that I might have caused a negative influence on the other athletes that are engaged in the matches."

Her medal started looking strangely cheerless.

She said, "I'm so sorry to have to say this in front of journalists, but at this point, in time, I feel sorry about the silver medal and I feel some regret about this so I have no time to talk about what the influence will be on our sport in Japan."

The people in the room started worrying about her.

But the bronze medalist two seats away? Well, Patricia Miranda could address that significance question for you -- and others.

Even though she admitted to picturing gold through the years of rigorous preparation, she had her bronze and her eloquence. Yale Law School did well to snare her.

Of wrestling, she said, "Maybe I can shake it out of my blood, maybe I can't. But the idea is to go start at the bottom of another mountain."

Of her late mother, she said, "My Mom's on my mind only when I look at my Dad's eyes. I just saw that's what he was thinking about."

And of whether women should play rough, male-traditional sports, she said, "Yes, unless you can really convince me there's something beyond two arms and two legs that definitely need [to wrestle]."

Until then, and after then, may women's wrestling proliferate. May it know all the gripping wonderfulness and horribleness. May coaches like Terry Steiner of the U.S. say of stalwarts like McMann, "Those are real emotions. Those are real tears.

"So how do you get rid of pain? Most of the time, time's the only thing."

May somebody always win gold.

And may the next two somebodies always win bronze.

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Scott Fowler | Silver doesn't ease the pain for wrestler McMann

By SCOTT FOWLER

Charlotte Observer 8/23/04

Sara McMann weeps as she prepares to receive the silver medal. Kaori Icho, far left, won gold. DAVID EULITT, Kansas City Star More women's wrestling photos

ATHENS - The saddest silver medal of these Summer Games was awarded to U.S. wrestler Sara McMann on Monday night.

McMann's shoulders trembled on the medal stand. She couldn't stop shaking. Tears streamed onto her U.S. warmup suit.

Her eyes were so red it looked as if she had cried for weeks. The bridge of her nose was also swollen - the Japanese wrestler who beat McMann in the gold-medal match had reopened an old cut there.

McMann was a mess.

"I don't think there's anything more painful in the world," she sobbed in her post-match news conference.

Of course, there is. We all know that. McMann, who lives in Colorado, knows that better than most of us.

But when you lose, it hurts.

When you lose something you have worked much of your life trying to accomplish, it hurts even more. Even if you are the second best in the world and really should be happy for doing something tremendous, that's no consolation.

"After it was over, I just felt like I did everything I could, worked as hard as I could, and it wasn't good enough," McMann said, and then more spasms racked her body.

It was painful to listen to.

You know that sympathetic feeling you get when one of your own kids gets hurt? That's what it felt like to hear McMann after her match.

McMann's pain was only part of a historic day for women's wrestling. On Monday, the first-ever Olympic medals in women's wrestling were awarded.

McMann, wrestling in the 138.75 pound-and-under class, actually placed higher than any other U.S. wrestler. She barely lost to Kaori Icho, 3-2, in a dramatic match conducted in Ana Liossia Olympic Hall before thousands of ardent Japanese fans who cheered for McMann's opponent.

McMann jumped out to a 2-0 lead and led for almost the entire match, but lost when Icho scored a one-point takedown with 20 seconds to go. Patricia Miranda also won a bronze medal for the U.S.

The women's wrestling venue produced more tears per athlete than any other I have seen at these Olympics. Perhaps it's the brutally physical nature of the sport; when you come off the mat, there's nothing left but raw emotion.

McMann, 23, is an emotional person anyway, her friends say.

"And there's nothing wrong with crying," said Terry Steiner, the U.S. women's wrestling coach. "She deserves to do that if she wants to."

McMann got into the sport after watching her older brother try it. Jason McMann was the family's first wrestling star. But five years ago, he was killed in Lock Haven, Pa. Police have arrested Fabian D. Smart, a former Lock Haven University player, and charged him with murder. The trial is scheduled to begin next month.

"It only comforts me to know my brother would be proud of me today," Sara McMann said Monday.

No one said anything else for a minute. McMann looked back down, on the verge of tears again. She was about to go outside and see a lot of people who loved her.

But at the moment, she was alone again in her silvery pain.

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Miranda believes sport has gained foothold

Published August 24, 2004

ATHENS, Greece · Patricia Miranda was forced to settle for a bronze medal at the inaugural Olympic women's wrestling tournament, but she wasn't about to mince words afterward.

Asked if there are any sports women shouldn't compete in at the Olympics, the Stanford graduate laughed.

"Unless you can really convince me there's something beyond two arms and two legs ... ," said Miranda, who competes in the 105.5-pound (48kg) weight class.

Miranda roared out of an early four-point hold to defeat France's Angelique Berthenet, 12-4, for the bronze. Miranda, who starts Yale Law School next week, saw her gold-medal hopes end with a 9-0 loss in the previous round to eventual gold medalist Irina Merleni.

Kaori Icho, whose sister, Chiharu, lost a double-overtime final to Merleni, made up for that disappointment with a 3-2 win over Sara McMann of the United States in the 1381/2-pound (63-kg) final. McMann lost a 2-0 lead in the final minute, then cried as she collected her silver.

"I don't think there's anything more painful in the world," said McMann, 23. "After it was over, I just felt like I did everything I could, worked as hard as I could. It just wasn't good enough."

China's Wang Xu beat Gouzel Maniourova of Russia 7-2 for the gold at 1581/2 pounds. Saori Yoshida defeated Tonya Verbeek of Canada 6-0 for the gold at 121 pounds (55kg).

Overall, Miranda was pleased with the unprecedented exposure her budding sport received.

"I think the demonstration women's wrestling has put on from the Olympic Games is going to do leaps and bounds for the sport itself," she said.

Miranda wrestled on the men's team at Stanford and McMann did the same at Lock Haven University. However, Miranda sees bigger days ahead.

"I think there are definitely things that wrestling with guys adds to your training," Miranda said. "But I also think that eventually the sport will grow, the numbers will grow, to where it will be a full-fledged NCAA sport."

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Gaining dad's support of Miranda's sport was her biggest takedown

By Tim Sullivan
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 23, 2004

ATHENS, Greece – Patricia Miranda has already won her toughest match. She has conquered dad.

She has persuaded her father that wrestling is worthy of her time and her passion. The conversion took years, but it is now complete. Jose Miranda is attending the Olympics as part of his daughter's entourage. If he has not yet seen the light, he has surely seen the love.

"I don't know if it's wrestling that has won him over," Patricia Miranda said yesterday. "I think it could have been anything. It could have been theater or ballet – something your kid cares so much about. I don't think he'll ever get into the technicalities."

Parents can't always comprehend the choices their children make, but Miranda's dream needs no explanation anymore. She won three matches in the first Olympic women's wrestling competition yesterday, advancing to today's 48 kilogram (106-pound) semifinal and toward the medals stand. What parent wouldn't be proud?

"There were a good six or seven years where we were very good friends but wrestling just wasn't a part of our relationship," Miranda said of her father. "Like I'd call him from nationals and it wouldn't even come up how I did. I just realized that in our relationship,

it was sort of a sore spot, but he was no longer an obstacle. It went for a

long time like that."

She wrestled first on the condition that she maintain an A average at Saratoga (Calif.) High. She wrestles now as an alternative to starting law school at Yale. She wrestled at Stanford before women's wrestling was added to the Olympic program. Not till last year did her dad get with the program.

"I think it was in New York City at the world championships," she said. "My sister convinced my dad to go. She's like, 'It's the world championships and it's in the U.S., dummy. Let's go.' So he went. I think it was there where his whole conversion came.

"I made it to the gold medal match and I lost, 5-4. And he's like, 'Oh, my gosh. You can actually compete.'"

"What do you think I do with all my time?" she replied. Observing his daughter's devastation at her narrow defeat, Jose Miranda had an epiphany.

"I was just totally broken," she remembered. "He said, 'I can't believe something means that much to you.' I think he came full circle right then."

Women's wrestling continues to struggle for acceptance in the wider world, but its status among sports was elevated by yesterday's competition. Inclusion in the Olympic program is a form of validation, and an invaluable forum.

"It gave us a platform from which to speak – to other countries and to our U.S. citizens," Miranda said. "It didn't immediately legitimize us, but I think with this competition, we get a medium in which to say, 'Hey, look at us. You judge now. Is this a sport? You see the sweat. You see the tears.' And I think that opportunity is what medal status gave us."

For the Olympics, women wrestlers have been divided into four weight classes. Miranda, who was second in the 2000 World Championships at 51 kilograms, dropped to 48 kilos last year. Sara McMann, like Miranda a silver medalist at last year's worlds, also advanced to today's semifinals in the 62 kilogram (137-pound) class.

Tela O'Donnell (55 kg/121 pounds) and Toccara Montgomery (72 kg/159 pounds) were eliminated from medal contention.

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This year, women go to the mat

8/23/04

American Tela O'Donnell (r.) trails Olga Smirnova of Russia but pulls out victory with a pin.

ATHENS - Even though it was mid-morning, the Greek fans were in full chorus, waving their blue and white flags and screaming "Hellas! Hellas! Hellas!" Stavroula Zygouri had just finished wiping the mat with Stephanie Gross of Germany and she was being serenaded with cheers.
As one of the first women to wrestle in the Olympics - and a local favorite - Zygouri had just made history. She was asked if the importance and excitement of the moment had sunk in yet.

"It's too early," she said.

Too early for her to grasp the magnitude of the moment?

"No, too early to wrestle," she said. "It's morning. If I had my preference, I'd rather wrestle at night."

Zygouri was like all the other women who were on the mat at the Ano Liossia Olympic Hall yesterday. They were too caught up in the tournament and advancing to the medal round to dwell on the historic implications of what they were achieving.

"It will kind of hit me in a little bit," said U.S. wrestler Tela O'Donnell, who grew up in Alaska and worked on fishing boats before trying out for the U.S. team.

She paused for a second to reconsider.

"Okay. It does kind of hit you right now. It's really cool," the 121-pound O'Donnell said.

O'Donnell, whose bubbly personality seems to run counter to the spirit needed to twist opponents into pretzels, was trailing 5-2 in her preliminary bout against Olga Smirnova of Russia when she countered a takedown with a half nelson and pinned Smirnova to the mat for the victory.

In the bittersweet journey of women's wrestling from club sport to Olympic competition, yesterday's preliminary and quarterfinal bouts were the sweetest parts for Patricia Saunders, a coach for the U.S. team. Saunders grew up in Michigan - a wrestling state - with a huge desire to wrestle. But she wasn't allowed to wrestle for her high school team and couldn't compete in college. She wrestled for clubs, won four world titles and never lost a match to an American woman in a decade of wrestling. All the while she was holding onto false promises of being able to compete in the Olympics.

Saunders, 38 and out of competition now, looked on wistfully yesterday from the sidelines. For a moment she wondered what might have been if she had been able to compete in the Olympics, but the thought was quickly overcome by the joy she felt for the women who were wrestling at the 2004 Games and the anticipation of those who will come in the future.

"Actually this was a big relief because we've been waiting for over a decade," Saunders said. "There were a lot of promises from the Olympics. We heard a lot of things - that we were getting in and that we weren't getting in, that it was going to be an exhibition sport. I actually trained for three Olympics, because they told us that we were going to get it. Everything now is nothing but good. We were doing all that stuff for the girls behind us."

There are still some barriers to break down when it comes to the thinking about women's wrestling. Patricia Miranda, who competes at 105.5 pounds, recalls that her father would come and yank her out of wrestling matches when she was a girl. He said he did it when her academics suffered (she has deferred attending Yale Law School until after the Games). Miranda said he didn't want her to wrestle.

"Let's just say we differ on that point," said Miranda, who defeated Li Hui of China and Lorisa Oorzhak of Russia in the morning prelims. "He's in the stands today."

Miranda said she won't allow herself to absorb the historical importance of wrestling in the Olympics until she is finished competing.

"The way I can best contribute to that history is to just focus on me the next two days and then pick up my head and hope that it did something for the overall movement," she said. "I'm trying not to look at the big picture."

The change in attitude toward women's wrestling happened slowly for Miranda. There are still places in America where girls can't wrestle on their high school or college teams. There are places where they can compete, but where their male opponents would rather forfeit than wrestle a girl. Saunders said most of the work that has to be done now will occur with the coaches at the grassroots level, who will have to make the decision to allow wrestlers to compete not based on gender, but on weight class and skill level.

"I think this (the Olympics) is a big thing," Saunders said. "They no longer look at us in the same way. They can see us and say that we belong here."

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WRESTLING
Saratoga's Miranda turns jeers to cheers

Meredith May, Chronicle Staff Writer 8/23/04

Athens -- Patricia Miranda is no joke.

The Olympian from Saratoga is dead serious -- despite the jeers she heard growing up as a girl wrestler -- about becoming one of the first women in her sport to step on the medal stand.

As one of four members of the inaugural women's U.S. Olympic wrestling team, she was a flash on the mat in her preliminary bouts Sunday, defeating three opponents -- junior world champion Lorisa Oorzhak of Russia, world bronze medalist Li Hui of China and a decorated grappler in Mayelis Caripa of Venezuela -- to advance to today's semifinal of the 48 kilos (106 pounds) category .

"Oh, it felt really good, especially when I walked out, there was a whole contingency of U.S. fans saying, 'Yay Patricia!' " she said. "I was like, how do you know my name?"

Maybe it's because her story has been in so many publications since the International Olympic Committee announced women would wrestle for the first time in the 2004 Summer Games.

Miranda's Olympic quest was a battle she fought alone, after "crying like a baby" in the Saratoga High School bathroom when the boys at school made fun of her, calling her the biggest joke in wrestling.

"The fact it could have been true really motivated me," she said. "I had to find out if I was a joke for wanting to be a wrestler."

No one was laughing Sunday, least of all her father, Jose Miranda, who broke into tears when his daughter won her third match. He admits he was one of her biggest barriers to wrestling, pulling her out of practice and threatening to sue Stanford when she joined the men's wrestling team, in a desperate attempt to keep her focused on her studies.

"I know parents who take their kids to swimming practice every day early in the morning for 12 years; I never did anything!" he said. "She did this all herself. In a way I feel sort of guilty."

Fulfilling a deal Miranda struck with her father while at Stanford, she maintained a 4.0 grade-point average and graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics and a master's degree in international relations. That meant she had her father's blessing to be the first woman ever to wrestle on the Stanford men's team, where her one and only victory came after she wore out an Oregon competitor in seven minutes, clinging to his leg and refusing to let go.

When she deferred an acceptance to Yale Law School in 2003 to train for the Olympics, it cost her a $10,000 scholarship from the school. But when she informed her father, he told her she had made the right decision. It meant he wouldn't be able to retire from his medical practice as soon as he had hoped, but he was willing to work longer to support her wrestling.

"That's when I knew he had come around to my side of things," Patricia said. "He told me he was proud of me."

Now he's her biggest fan, waving a huge American flag from the stands when she enters the stadium. Patricia's cheering section included her stepmother, Lilian, her sister, Andrea, and her two brothers, Michael and Joseph. They flew to Greece and are staying in an overpriced hotel with a broken ceiling fan and cockroaches, Jose said.

"I couldn't sleep last night," Jose Miranda said. "I kept imagining her matches and all the different moves ... what the hell? I don't know anything about the sport!"

The Miranda clan, in their T-shirts that spell out T-R-U-X-A (Portuguese for Tricia), will be front and center for Patricia's semifinal match against the world champion, Irini Merleni from Ukraine.

Merleni was absolutely frightening Sunday, annihilating her three opponents via the mercy rule, after she racked up a 10-point lead on each one in the first two minutes of the six-minute matches.

"She's a dominant a force, but I'm really glad we get to bang heads and see who's progressed enough," Miranda said, "It's what the sport is all about."

Only one of Miranda's teammates advanced to the semifinals. Four-time national champion Sara McMann of North Carolina pinned China's Lili Meng in the morning, which earned her enough classification points to pass through to today's semifinals even though she lost her second evening match 5-2 to Canadian Viola Yanik.

"I think I had the wrong driving force," McMann said. "I'm very lucky it didn't cost me, and it's a good lesson."

Tela O'Donnell from Alaska pinned her first opponent but lost 11-1 in a mercy defeat to Canadian Tonya Verbeek, shutting her out of the semifinals. It was her first time competing internationally.

Toccara Montgomery of New York lost one and won the second, and was also bumped out of the winners' bracket.

"I wrestled poorly today, but what can you do?'' Montgomery said. "I'm going to go back to school, it starts on the 25th, and concentrate on something else -- something that doesn't require making weight!"

The women's Olympic wrestling debut was bittersweet for Patricia Saunders, one of the three U.S. coaches. A four-time world champion and the most decorated woman in wrestling, Saunders, 37, trained for three Olympics on a broken promise that her sport would be added to the Games.

"I'm sad I didn't see it in my day, but today there's no place I'd rather be," she said. "I looked down at the mats and saw the girls wrestling, and I felt such enormous relief. Now that we can say it's an Olympic sport, it takes off that 10-minute obligatory conversation you have to have with everyone explaining what it is you do."

It also spells the beginning of the end of the mud wrestling jokes, Miranda said.

"I don't care why men turn on the TV, if they think it's sexy, fine, I don't hold that against them," Miranda said. "I want them to tune in for whatever reason, because I know, after two minutes, we will have won them over. They'll look and say, 'These women are wrestling their hearts out.' "

Briefing
Sunday: Patricia Miranda scored three victories in the 48kg division.

Up next: Miranda faces Ukrainian Irini Merleni in today's semifinals. The winner moves on to today's final.

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Trail blazers take to the mat

By Tom Hundley
Tribune Olympic Bureau
Published August 23, 2004

ATHENS -- Her own dad once was among the multitude of doubters. But
Sunday, Patricia Miranda and her three U.S. women's wrestling teammates went a
long way toward making believers of a skeptical public.

Miranda and Sara McMann finished first in their groups and advanced to
Monday's semifinals at the Olympic Games.

Jose Miranda admits to being a little fuzzy on the rules of wrestling,
and he once threatened to sue the school district in Saratoga, Calif., for
allowing his daughter to participate in a so-called boys sport. But now
he is in Athens, rooting his daughter on.

"He brought the whole family, and that really meant a lot to me," said
his daughter, a Stanford graduate who wrestled on the university's men's
team.

Miranda, 25, won her three matches in the 48-kg (105.5-pound) category.
She clinched her spot in the medal round with a decisive 11-1 technical
fall against Mayelis Caripa of Venezuela. This is the first time women's
freestyle wresting has been included in the Olympics.

Miranda, an indifferent student in high school, admitted she had
"butted heads" with her father over the question of wrestling, but she said he
finally yielded on the condition that she improve her grades. She
became a straight-A student and a top-rated wrestler.

But even then her father kept his distance from the sport.

"Wrestling just wasn't part of our relationship," she said.

That changed last year, when she won the U.S. nationals for the second
time.

Miranda, who has been accepted at Yale Law School, hopes to present her
father with an Olympic medal, but she acknowledged that what he really
wants is for her to resume her studies.

McMann, 23, the other U.S. semifinalist, wrestled on the men's team at
Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania. McMann won her first match but lost
her second. Still, she had enough points to finish first in her pool at 63
kg (139 pounds).

"I wrestled not to lose," McMann said, adding that she would not make
that mistake in the medal round.

The U.S. had high hopes for Toccara Montgomery, 21, a student at
Cumberland College in Kentucky, one of only six U.S. colleges with a women's
wrestling program.

Montgomery is regarded as the world's second best in the 72-kg
(158.5-pound) class, but she had the bad luck to draw world No. 1 Kyoko Hamaguchi as
her first opponent. In what could have been the gold-medal match, Hamaguchi
won 8-4.

"That's the draw," Montgomery said. "It's tough, but it's fair."

Tela O'Donnell, 22, who was raised in a log cabin and played boys
football in Homer, Alaska, had one pin, but lost her chance to advance with an
11-1 loss in her next match.

Miranda will face reigning world champion Irini Merleni of Ukraine in
her semifinal Monday. McMann faces Stavroula Zygouri of Greece. Japan, the
dominant power in the sport, was the only team to reach the semis in
every weight.

It has been a long road to Athens for the Americans. They've suffered
the taunts of wrestling fans who don't believe the sport is for women.
They've been snubbed by male competitors who would rather take a forfeit than
wrestle a girl.

For Patricia Saunders, a coach on the U.S. team and one of the finest
female wrestlers in the sport's history, the first day of Olympic competition
stirred mixed feelings. She has a case full of trophies but was never
able to compete in the Olympics because the the women's event was not
recognized.

Twice, in 1992 and '96, Saunders trained for the Games, only to be
disappointed when the IOC declined to include women's wrestling.

"It was a lot more bitter than sweet," she said. "But the fact is that
[wrestling] is in there now, and there's nothing bittersweet about
that. I'm just happy for our team. This is a big thing. It's just not about me."

Appearing in the Olympics already has done a lot to blunt the jokes
about female mud wrestling. A medal would do even more. Said Miranda: "It
gives us a platform to say, `Hey look at us. You see the sport. You see the
sweat and tears.'"