Bodybuilding Weekly - Womenâ€™s Wrestling: Patricia Miranda Fails to Qualify for Beijing

Womenâ€™s Wrestling: Patricia Miranda Fails to Qualify for Beijing

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Hardbodies News 13 June, 2008 06:07:00

Patricia Miranda

Patricia Miranda of Saratoga made history as a member of the first women's U.S. Olympic wrestling team in 2004, but failed to qualify for the 2008 team.

June 13, 2008, 11:25 pm

By Greg Bishop

LAS VEGAS — After Patricia Miranda lost Friday, after her wrestling career possibly ended along with her 2008 Olympic bid, she walked past a crowd of reporters toward a concrete wall deep in the Thomas & Mack Center. She knelt down, hands on knees, and leaned forward until her head rested on the concrete. A friend stood sentry, blocking Miranda from the outside world.

Miranda never expected this. Not after winning a bronze medal in 2004 in Athens. Not after retiring to earn a law degree from Yale. And not after returning to wrestling, a sport in which she is considered a pioneer, after her husband, Levi Weikel-Magden, convinced her to take another shot at Olympic glory.

The story of Miranda and Weikel-Magden was chronicled in The Times last week. The interview was conducted back in April, when Miranda won easily at nationals. She needed to win twice here at United States Olympic team trials to qualify for her second Olympics.

Weikel-Magden stood behind the mat Friday, shouting instructions, imploring his wife on in the 105.5-pound weight class. She lost the first period to Clarissa Chun. Then the second. Even then, it did not register. Really? She had lost?

She struggled to answer the inevitable question, the “How does it feel to watch three years of work disappear in the span of four minutes?”

“It’s not like a loved one dying,” Miranda said. “But as far as your job can go, investing your heart into it, it hurts.”

Miranda said she could not remember the moments after the match. She did not remember what Weikel-Magden told her afterward, or the raised hand of Chun, now an Olympian.

After winning, Chun said that she came back from two knee surgeries, that she tried to calm herself between matches, that she was not exactly surprised she won.

“I am and I’m not,” Chun said. “I knew I could do it. I’m really glad I did it.”

Asked if this were her last match, Miranda said, “Likely so.” She was not definitive, however, mainly because she and her husband never really thought about it.

They planned to discuss post-Olympics plans after Beijing. In the April interview, Weikel-Magden acknowledged thinking about Beijing and what it would feel like if Miranda made it to the medal stand.

“I don’t know if it’s an age thing so much, but I’ve really had all the opportunities given to me to excel in the sport,” said Miranda,
29. “After a while, you need to make room who might do better, if you don’t accomplish what you’re supposed to.”

Afterward, tears welled in her eyes. But Miranda will not have to worry about what to do once her wrestling career concludes. She holds an undergraduate degree in economics and a master’s degree in international policy, both from Stanford, and the law degree from Yale.

Source: New York Times