By Kyle Klingman & Mike Finn

Clarissa Chun has achieved several historic firsts. In 1998, she became the first state champion in the first year girls’ state wrestling was sanctioned in Hawaii. This year, she became the first wrestler from Hawaii — male or female — to make the U.S. Olympic Team. And way back in 2000, she made her first World Team too.

            But if you ask Chun about wrestling at the World Championships eight years ago, there is a good chance she’ll tell that being on that team was nothing historic.

            “It feels so good,” said Chun after winning the Trials. “This is actually the first time that I made a team — like earned it. In 2000 I kind of made the World Team by default. The person who beat me was injured. I was young. In 2000, that was my first year of wrestling freestyle and I was just like shocked by the world. I was like, ‘Holy cow, am I at this level?’ Now I believe that I can do this.”

            Chun was one of four women wrestlers to earn their first Olympic bids. Like Chun, two others — Randi Miller at 138.75 pounds and Ali Bernard at 158.5 pounds — upset veteran wrestlers at their weights while 121-pound Marcie Van Dusen, one year after earning her first Worlds appearance, will have the most experience of any of the women Olympians.

            Chun, who subbed for Tricia Saunders in the 2001 Worlds, left no doubt that she was worthy of being this year’s Olympian at 105.5 pounds in women’s freestyle.

            After placing fourth at this year’s U.S. Open, Chun entered the Challenge tournament seeded third. After wins over Alyssa Lampe, Sara Fulp-Allen and 2006 World Team member Mary Kelly, Chun faced 2008 U.S. Open champion, 2004 Olympic bronze medalist, and five-time World Team member Patricia Miranda.

            Miranda, a wrestler known for her physical and aggressive style, had defeated Chun in two straight matches to make the 2004 Olympic Team. She also defeated Chun during the semifinals of the U.S. Nationals in April. But for Chun, that loss was inspirational.

            “I wrestled her at nationals,” said Chun, who lost 0-1, 4-1, 1-0 on April 24 . “It was very controversial. It was a very close match. Some people say I won. It didn’t turn out that way but I drew confidence from that and believing in myself that I could do it. It’s my time. I’ve been sitting on the back-burner.

            “Prior to nationals I haven’t wrestled her since 2004. I kind of did put her on a pedestal. She’s wrestled so consistent and so great. When I wrestled her at nationals I felt like I could do it.”

            It looked as though Miranda would take the third period of match one, but a last-second takedown and exposure gave Chun the deciding period.

            In the second match, Chun won the first period 1-0 and had a 1-0 lead when Miranda was in on a takedown late in the second period. No takedown was scored but a video review overturned the decision, tying the score at 1-1. Knowing she needed to scored to win the period, Chun shot in quickly and scored two points, giving her the win and a spot on the Olympic Team.

            “That’s a switch that I don’t know how it goes off and on,” said Chun about scoring points at the end of the period. “When I’m in a match and I’m picturing doing a move,  it’s too late. I just need to go out there and not think about it. Just trust my training that everything will happen if I react.”

Dream came true for Van Dusen

            Every wrestler competing at the Olympic Trials had a dream of reaching the Olympics, but Marcie Van Dusen started thinking about wrestling in the Games 12 years before women even took a step on an Olympic mat as a competitor.

            “I think I knew I was going to be an Olympian when I was ten years old. I really did,” said the 26-year-old native of Lake Arrowhead, Calif., who was a decade old in 1992. The first Olympics for women wrestling came in 2004. “Women’s wrestling wasn’t a sport yet, but I knew it was going to be.”

            The 121-pound weight class included three women who had won several World medals — bronze medalist Jenny Wong (2003), two-time silver medalist Tina George (2002 and 2003) and two-time World bronze medalist Sally Roberts (2002 and 2003). Van Dusen, who had just one Worlds appearance (she won two of three matches in 2007 but did not medal) on her resume, had an uphill battle in representing the United States at this weight in Beijing.

            Van Dusen entered the Trials as the woman to beat at 121 after winning the U.S. Nationals, but there was still doubt midway through her Championship Series with Sally Roberts at the Trials.

            Van Dusen lost the first period of each match. She came back to beat Roberts, who emerged as the winner from the Challenge tournament, where she beat Tatianna Padilla in those finals.

            “I kind of do that a lot,” said Van Dusen of her first-period losses before defeating Roberts, 1-2, 1-0, 3-0 and 0-1, 1-0, 1-0. “I have lost a lot of first periods before and I know that I just have to adjust a few things and get out there and regroup. It’s not smart. I need to change it up. I need to change it before August (when the Olympics begin). I will for sure.”

Big punch in a small package

            Big things happen in Texas … even from the state’s smallest natives.

            For Randi Miller, a five-foot native of Arlington, Texas, there was a time when she was cut from her basketball team because she was too short.

            But the 138.75-pounder was bigger than any wrestlers at the Olympic Trials, even Sara McMann, the eight-time World/Olympic Team member, who brought a resume with four medals on it — including a silver medal from the 2004 Athens Olympics — with her to Las Vegas and the Thomas & Mack Center.

            But McMann was no match for Miller, who lost the first period of the first match of their Championship Series to McMann, but stormed back to win the next four periods by a an 8-0 margin, including identical 1-0, 1-0 scores in the second match. Miller’s strength and quickness were better than McMann, who had dominated this weight class in this country until losing to Miller in the U.S. Nationals in April.

            Did Miller get into McMann’s head?

            “No, we’re just two girls out there battling,” said Miller, who finished second to McMann in both the 2006 and 2007 U.S. Nationals. “I ended up on top today.

            “I expected (McMann) to come back and fight hard, which she did. And I knew that I was going to go out and have as much fun as a I could.”

            Miller said she started developing confidence during her high school days at Martin, where she learned to wrestle in a state that offered girls wrestling.

            “I was able to develop and learn different skills,” Miller said. “I never wrestled on a men’s team. For me, wrestling with women helped me develop confidence. I use a lot of my strength in wrestling. If I was wrestling men, I wouldn’t be so confident.”

            Miller also said that one reason 2008 has been so special to her has been the help of her coach, Levi Weikel-Magden, who had just seen his wife, Patricia Miranda, lose the 105.5-pound weight class with him in her corner

            “I don’t know how he was able to coach me right away,” admitted Miller. “He was focused on his job and he wasn’t done yet.”

            And neither is Miller.

All-American Ali

            Ali Bernard has not taken the typical route in representing the U.S. in her first Olympics. Instead, she has won four Canadian college national championships for the University of Regina.

            “Sometimes they call me Canadian but I’m 100 percent American,” said Bernard, who is a native of New Ulm, Minn., which is 100 miles southwest of Minneapolis.

            A two-time Junior World champion (2003 and 2005) and the 2006 ASICS Girls High School Wrestler of the Year, Bernard could have trained at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, but chose to attend the Canadian college in the province of Saskatchewan.

            “I needed something different,” Bernard said. “I can’t just wrestle all the time in Colorado. I needed to make wrestling fun for me. There are a lot of younger girls so I get to work on my moves a lot. They are tough, but it’s not like the elite level.”

            Bernard found that level of competition at the Trials at 158.5 pounds, which also featured a pair of former World champs in Kristie Marano and Iris Smith and two-time World bronze medalist Katie Downing, who lost to Bernard at the U.S. Nationals.

            The result at the Trials was similar as Bernard, who lost the second period of the second match when she got caught in a headlock by Downing, came back to score the winning takedown in period three with one second remaining.

            “I just wanted to go out and wrestle as hard as I can,” said Bernard. “There are a lot of great names, a lot of great people. I feel like I’ve worked hard for it.”

            Just like any American. n