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Associated Press 9/5/04

BRUSH, Colo. -- The boyfriend of Olympic wrestling silver-medalist Sara McMann was killed Friday when the Jeep they were in rolled off the shoulder of Interstate 76 in northeastern Colorado, the Colorado State Patrol said.

The crash happened about 1:20 p.m., patrol spokesman Master Trooper Ron Watkins said. The 1997 Jeep Cherokee rolled about two times, and Steven Blackford, 28, a three-time NCAA All-American wrestler at Arizona State, was ejected, Watkins said. Blackford was not wearing a seat belt.

He said McMann was driving and he believed Blackford was in the front passenger seat.

McMann, 23, of Lock Haven, Pa., was hospitalized in Fort Morgan and has asked that her condition not be released, according to a hospital employee who refused to give her name. Watkins said she suffered minor to moderate injuries, but could not elaborate. Investigators believe she was wearing a seat belt.

Watkins said the accident remained under investigation, but speed may be a possible cause. He did not know if alcohol or drugs were related. The crash happened about 10 miles east of Brush, about 90 miles northeast of Denver.

McMann's parents, Paula and Tucker McMann, told The Express newspaper in Lock Haven that hospital officials said their daughter was physically OK.

She won a silver medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens in the 138½-pound (63-kg) weight class. She lost the championship match to rival and training partner Kaori Icho of Japan.

Blackford and McMann were traveling from the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs to Washington D.C., where he was attending the Columbus Law School at the Catholic University of America, according to Gary Abbott of USA Wrestling.

Blackford's 19-year-old sister, Valerie, of Des Moines, Iowa, said the couple planned to stop there for a Labor Day party with his family before heading to Washington. Blackford also is survived by his parents, Steven and Karen, and a 22-year-old brother, John.

"He was the best brother in the world, and everyone remembers him as being outgoing," Valerie Blackford said.

She said her brother's death has been very hard on her mother, who also lost her father in July.

McMann had dedicated her Olympic performance to her late brother, Jason, who introduced her to wrestling and was killed five years ago. A former Lock Haven University football player goes on trial in his death later this fall.

Blackford was living with Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Arizona, and was very interested in law, Valerie Blackford said.

"Sara was moving out there to be with him," she said. "They were just going to grow up and live life, pretty much."

Tricia Saunders, McMann's former teammate and friend, said the couple had met at her home in Arizona.

"They just fit together," she said. "They were really nice to see together because they really took care of each other."

She said McMann was excited to move to Washington, unwind after the Olympics and possibly attend graduate school.

"Steve was really just someone who had a childlike sense about him," Saunders said. "He was a really wonderful guy, who just kind of exuded that kind of joy."

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Women wrestle for real

Nick Piecoro
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 4, 2004 12:00 AM

They didn't come back with any gold medals, but Ahwatukee Foothills residents Tricia and Townsend Saunders and the rest of the U.S. women's wrestling team returned from the Olympics with something perhaps even more valuable: Legitimacy.

"When you say you're an Olympic athlete, you don't have to explain that to anybody," Tricia Saunders said. "That puts legitimacy to the sport. It was always there, but people understand the whole Olympic tradition."

The couple recently returned from Greece after helping coach a U.S. team that brought back a silver and a bronze medal in the Olympic debut of women's wrestling.

U.S. wrestler Sara McMann earned a silver medal at 138 1/2 pounds, while Patricia Miranda won a bronze at 105 1/2.

"All in all, I think it was a great experience," Saunders said. "For the athletes individually, I think it's going to take a while for it to set in, the magnitude of what they've really done."

Saunders said she could sense the uniqueness of this year's games.

"Greece is a beautiful place," she said, "and it was kind of really special for all the Olympians to be back where it all started."

She and Townsend, a silver medal wrestler at the 1996 Olympics, hope the worldwide attention the sport received last month will spread.

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Victorious Verbeek returns home

By Rob Terpstra
Published: Friday, September 3, 2004

Several months later, at the XXVIII Olympiad in Athens, Verbeek easily won her first two matches, separated in time by only an hour. Disposing of American Tela O'Donnell by a score of 11-1 and Russian Olga Smirnova (13-3), she found herself in the medal rounds with consecutive technical superiorities.

Facing Swede Ida-Theres Karlsson and tied 1-1 with less than a minute to go in the match, Verbeek delivered in the clutch, recording two points for a 3-1 advantage, which she held onto for an inspiring win.

In the gold medal match, it was not to be. Saori Yoshida, the winner of 15 international events, would soon add another.

Taking Verbeek down twice in the first two minutes of the opening round put Yoshida up 2-0. She was not to relinquish the lead, as the Beamsville native could not score any points heading into the break. Quickly down three points ten seconds into the second period, Yoshida would score three more points before the match was over. The heavily favoured Japanese seemingly controlled the tempo and defeated the Canadian by a score of 6-0.

By a vast understatement, Verbeek was embraced by an entourage of her Canadian supporters, along the trip paying her dues to the sport she loves.

"She is quite determined to do the very best that she could. This is a sport," DesChatelets says, "that's got to be the most demanding sport there is in the world."

Appearing on several nationally televised interviews, and coming home to a hero's welcome, the Brock graduate and wrestling club member acknowledged and emphasized the amount of individuals that had placed her at this point in her wrestling career. DesChatelets echoed Verbeek's statements.

"It gives credit to our program, a lot of credit has to go to Marty Calder, he's the one that devoted his time as a coach to work with her and to make sure that she was well prepared, and he did a very good job."

DesChatelets says that although too early to speculate, her success at the Olympics will perhaps jump start funding for women's wrestling at the school and in the area.

"We're having a hard time, so hopefully this is going to help us, and people will wake up and say 'maybe we can help.'"

It seems only fitting that as the pioneer in her sport, she will perhaps ring in a new era of grappling success and awareness at both Brock and across the country. As the accolades pile up and the limelight fades, she will head off the wrestling mat ... for now.

Beijing 2008 is but four years away. The cause - the Olympic Games. The effect - a gold medal.