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women's results of the 2003 european championships in Riga/LAT , 1-4th of may
48 kg
1. Brigitte Wagner (GER) win 4:0
2. Lilia Kaskarakova (RUS)
3. Angelique Berthenet-Hidalgo (FRA)6:0
4. Nora Lauvstad (NOR)
51kg
1. Natalya Karamtchakova(RUS)win 6-0
2. Ida Hellstroem (SWE)
3. Alexandra Demmel (GER)win 6-5
4. Anne Deluntch (FRA)
55kg
1. Natalia Golts (RUS)win by pin
2. Sofia Poumpouridou (GRE)
3. Sylvia Bilenska (POL) win 5:2
4. Christina Oertli (GER)
59kg
1. Monika Michalik (POL)win by pin
2. Stefanie Stueber (GER)
3. Olga Krygina (UKR) win 4:0
4. Kristina Odrina (LAT)
63kg
1. Lene Aanes (NOR)win by pin
2. Nikola Hartmann (AUT)
3. Sara Eriksson (SWE)win 3:0
4. Marlgozata Bassa (POL)
67kg
1. Lise Legrand-Golliot (FRA)win 3:0
2. Valeriya Zlatova (UKR)
3. Ewelina Pruzko (POL) win 3:0
4. Annika Oertli (GER)
72kg
1. Anita Schaetzle (GER)win 11:0
2. Katerina Halova (CZE)
3. Monika Kowalska (POL) win 3:0
4. Stanka Hristova (BUL)
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Kentucky college earns reputation in women's collegiate wrestling
ROGER ALFORD, Associated Press Writer 5/3/03
Toccara Montgomery can't hold back a smile when she hears someone say
she is intimidating.
The description doesn't seem to fit the soft-spoken college sophomore who
is studying to become an elementary school teacher - at least not
until she puts on her wrestling uniform and steps onto the mat.
That's when she replaces her ready smile with an expressionless game face
that can leave any opponent uneasy. Match that with her rippling
muscles, and she might be considered fearsome.
"I don't see myself as intimidating," said Montgomery, who stands 5-foot-6.
"But if others do, I'm all for it."
As the nation's No. 1-ranked woman wrestler in the 158-pound division,
Montgomery has helped a conservative Christian school in
southeastern Kentucky take on what might seem an antithetical role as
powerhouse in the fledgling sport of collegiate women's wrestling.
Montgomery, with a record of 50-2, led her team to first-place finishes in
four collegiate tournaments in the past year. The team is ranked No. 1
in the nation by USA Wrestling, the nation's governing body for amateur wrestling.
"She plays with me like I'm a toy," said Sarah Hayes, a Cumberland College
enior who is currently No. 3 in the 112-pound collegiate division.
"Wrestling her is like me wrestling with a 5-year-old."
As the top wrestler in her weight class in collegiate and overall rankings,
Montgomery is a likely contender to represent the United States in
first-ever Olympic wrestling competition in 2004 in Athens, Greece.
Cumberland College, with some 1,750 students, has a mission to provide a
quality Christian education. Students are required to attend
worship services in the school chapel, and one of the quickest ways to be
suspended is to be caught with alcohol on campus. Students also
are required to do community service projects, and, as a result, have built
more than 100 homes for the poor over the past 20 years.
Yet, many of the students excel at the most physical of sports, such as
wrestling, that involve hand-to-hand contact. Cumberland has a strong
udo program, too, having won eight national championships - three by men's
teams, five by women's teams.
The school's president, Jim Taylor, a former high school wrestler, sought
to start the women's wrestling program as a means to provide
gender equity in the sports program and to help increase the school's national profile.
The school hired Kip Flanik - Montgomery's high school coach in Cleveland,
Ohio - to head the women's program. Flanik, who started out as
an assistant coach for a boys team in Cleveland, objected when the first
high school girl tried to join up.
"I did everything I could to get her to quit, but she wouldn't quit," Flanik said.
That girl was Tina George, now a likely contender for the 2004 Olympics in
the 121-pound division. She is a wrestler in a U.S. Army program for elite athletes.
George, and later Montgomery, sold him so thoroughly on women's wrestling
that he decided to devote his full attention to it. To have coached
Olympic-class wrestlers, Flanik said, has been an honor.
"A good lot of these girls have Olympic potential," Flanik said as 10 of
his 18 wrestlers sparred in a sweltering Cumberland College gym two
weeks ago. Three of the 10 are No. 1 in collegiate rankings - freshmen
Brooke Bogren at 130 pounds and Alaina Berube at 138 pounds and
sophomore Jessi Shirley at 121 pounds. "With hard work and dedication, the
sky's the limit for them."
What is perhaps more important, the team's wrestlers have a cumulative
grade point average of 3.0. Hayes, who has a 3.5 GPA and plans to
become either a pharmacist or chemist, jokingly refers to her teammates as brainiacs.
"If it wasn't for wrestling, I guess I'd have been a normal brainiac, with
a pocket protector," she said.
Therein lies the success of the Cumberland College teams, says Flanik.
"It's a misconception that wrestling is a brute sport," he said. "If I was
going to compare wrestling to another sport, I'd compare it to chess. It's
an intellectual competition."
Gary Abbott, director of special projects for USA Wrestling, said only six
U.S. colleges now are fielding women's wrestling teams.
Cumberland College is the only one in the East. The closest one, Missouri
Valley College in Marshall, Mo., is some 12 hours away by bus.
Others are the University of Minnesota, Morris; Neosho County Community
College in Chanute, Kan.; Menlo College in Atherton, Calif.; and
Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore. That list, Abbott said, is
expected to grow as more high school girls join the sport.
"Women's wrestling is growing every year," Abbot said. "There are more
girls participating on the high school level than ever before, but most
of them are wrestling on boys' teams."
So far, only Texas and Hawaii have developed all-girls wrestling programs.
In other states, girls wrestle on boys' teams.
The debut of women's wrestling at the Olympics, Abbott said, is likely to
change that by getting more girls interested in the sport.
"We're really excited not only about the competitive excellence of our
athletes, but that they're also great people," he said. "They're standing up
and setting the example for young women everywhere."
On the Net:
Cumberland College: http://www.cumber.edu
USA Wrestling: http://www.themat.com