Wrestler Embraces Her Latest Challenge in Life

Patricia Miranda’s father threatened to sue officials at Concord, Calif., High if they allowed his daughter to wrestle on the boys’ team.

Not if they excluded her, but if they permitted her to compete in the sport she values as “such an opportunity to look into myself” and he considers a distraction.

Jose Miranda, a social activist in his native Brazil, moved his family to California in 1978 for a better life. Patricia is the second of his four children, and to all he stressed the importance of schooling above everything, including wrestling.

“His line was that education is the ladder,” she said. “It wasn’t a gender issue. He was really worried that I’d be this lifelong athlete and I wouldn’t continue my studies.”

They made a deal: She’d maintain a 4.0 grade-point average if he’d let her wrestle. It worked for both parties until women’s freestyle wrestling was added to the Athens Games, leading her to move to the U.S. Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, Colo., after her 2002 graduation from Stanford and defer enrolling at Yale Law School to pursue a spot on the Olympic team.

“He’s pretty proud,” she said, but added that he “gets all nervous” with talk of her competing through 2008.

First, she’s concerned with making the Athens team, and she has a strong chance.

Miranda, who will be 25 next month, has twice won silver medals at the world championships in the 48 kg (105.5-pound) class, perhaps the most competitive in the small but growing world of women’s wrestling. As the U.S. champion she has a bye through the two-day Olympic trials challenge tournament at the RCA Dome. On Sunday she’ll wrestle the winner of the challenge tournament for a trip to Athens.

“It’s pretty hard to describe in a couple of words how excited I am,” she said Thursday. “A lot of the work is going to be done in Athens to get the sport more widely recognized.”

Miranda endured harassment and taunting in high school, but she called it “character development” and said it inspired her to set her sights on becoming a conflict mediator for the United Nations. It also propelled her in a quest she began when she was 10 years old and mourning her mother’s death.

“I wrote in my diary that one test is when I’m in my deathbed, how much did I explore myself? How much did I challenge myself?” she said. “For somebody to die having not gotten to know themselves is one of the big sins.”

U.S. women’s Coach Terry Steiner, aware that women’s wrestling is a divisive topic among coaches and wrestlers who see Title IX as a killer of men’s programs, said wrestling is better off for her presence.

“I believe in the sport and what it teaches, life lessons and life skills. Why do we want to limit it to half the population?” he said. “She’s what the Olympics are all about.... Her life is about excellence. That’s how she lives every day of her life.”

Each U.S. champion in the 18 Olympic-qualified classes -- seven men’s freestyle, seven men’s Greco-Roman and four women’s freestyle -- has a bye to Sunday’s finals. Several notables must advance through the challenge rounds, including 185-pound freestyler Cael Sanderson, a world silver medalist last year who lost to Lee Fullhart at the U.S. meet, and Sydney Greco-Roman heavyweight gold medalist Rulon Gardner, whose injured wrist contributed to his loss to Dremiel Byers at the U.S. competition.

Gardner also faces emotional and mental obstacles.

“Everybody’s going for him. Everybody wants to knock off the great American hero,” said Andy Seras, the U.S. Greco-Roman coach. “Fortunately, he has a lot of experience....

“I know his hand is still bothering him, but we’ve got a national champion here who says his shoulder is not 100%,” he said of Jim Gruenwald, a 132-pound Greco-Roman wrestler. “If you go up and down the line, not one person is 100%.”

Going Swimmingly

Although it’s widely assumed swimmer Michael Phelps will pursue Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals in one Olympics, Phelps remains mum on the number of events he plans to swim in Athens.

His primary goal, he said during last week’s U.S. Olympic team media summit, is to qualify for the U.S. team at the Olympic trials, July 7-14 at Long Beach. From there, he’ll take it one step, or one gold, at a time.

“The goal I put out there is the goal of one gold medal,” said Phelps, who holds world records in the 200-meter individual medley, 400-meter IM and 200-meter butterfly. “It’s not going to be easy, but it’s something I want to achieve and hopefully can achieve.

“I’m extremely hard on myself. I came home from Sydney with nothing, so bringing back a gold medal to the U.S. would be an honor for me and an exciting experience.”

Phelps, who will be 19 next month, will compete twice before the trials. He’ll swim this weekend at the Santa Clara Invitational and again at his home pool in Baltimore on June 12. In between, he’ll train at altitude at the Olympic training center.

The Santa Clara meet affords him a chance to avenge his loss to compatriot Ian Crocker in the 100-meter butterfly at last year’s world championships. It also will be his first big test since he became ill and pulled out of the 400 IM at a Grand Prix meet last month in Indianapolis.

“Being able, hopefully, to swim a full program out there and hopefully put up some fast times will give us a better idea of where things stand,” he said of himself and his coach, Bob Bowman.

Here and There

Australian swimmer Grant Hackett, the 1,500-meter gold medalist at Sydney, will compete at the Janet Evans Invitational meet at Long Beach, June 10-13. Hackett, who also has won six world titles in the 1,500, will be joined by teammates Ian Thorpe, Michael Klim, Sarah Ryan, Petria Thomas and Craig Stevens. Thorpe plans to swim the 100-, 200- and 400-meter freestyle races.

The U.S. accepted a berth in the Olympic judo tournament in the men’s 60 kg weight class after Cuba declined its spot in that class. The U.S. will compete in all seven weight classes and five of seven women’s classes at Sydney. The spots will go to the winners at the Judo trials, June 5 at San Jose.

Only 84 days until the Athens Summer Games.