By Jason Bryant
[email protected]
As you might expect, Chris Bono, Brad Vering and Patricia Miranda all come from completely different backgrounds.
Of course, the three former U.S. World Team members wrestle three different styles, but all those backgrounds come into play as the trio prepares for this weekend’s U.S. World Team Trials in Las Vegas.
“It’s extremely challenging,” said Florida native Bono, trying to balance his goals of winning a world-level medal and coaching at the Division I level. “I really had to sit back and map out a schedule for myself. If I don’t set my schedule and abide by it, it’s my family that suffers.”
Bono led the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga to a Southern Conference title in his first season as the head coach and had six wrestlers in the Round of 12 at the NCAA championships, but now Bono has a different mindset heading into a chance at representing the U.S. in the final world championship year before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
“In 2003, I was the #1 man coming out and I lost two straight matches,” said Bono. “When I look back on that, I think I was afraid to lose. Now I’ve got a career and a family, I’m the most care free guy wrestling right now.”
“I’ve got a career, I’m ready to win this time, I don’t know if I was ready to win last time,” said Bono.
Stability has also entered Bono’s life, after a long coaching tenure under Bobby Douglas at Iowa State, Bono uprooted and headed to Tennessee for one season as an assistant under Joe Seay and then assumed the role of head coach shortly after Seay resigned from the UTC post after one season.
“I feel better than I have in the last three years, just because my mind is free,” Bono said. “I’m not in a transition of moving jobs, moving houses, paying two mortgages. It was a tough 2-3 years there.”
“I’m in a great situation here,” said Bono.
Vering, a former Olympian and three-time World Team member says things have also changed from when he was a younger man, and it’s a simple reason.
He’s training smarter, not harder.
“I’m approaching my 30’s now, so I can’t train like I did when I was in college,” said the former Nebraska standout. “What’s been happening with me is I was still training at that same level and your body can’t recover as fast as you could when you were younger. I’ve been recovering harder and taking a day off every now and then and staying healthy.”
“When I do that, it’s been great for me. I’m having a great spring, I’m still working very very hard, it’s just helped me mentally and it such a big part of the sport.”
Vering explained that while he’s still got the thinking that he can go as hard as he could as a newly-anointed post-collegian.
With age, comes wisdom, right?
“When you give yourself more time to recover, you can train even harder on those days,” he said. “If you have more recovery time, your body has more time to recover and get stronger. I’m more technically sound and better in those situations.”
Miranda, a 2004 bronze medalist on the U.S. inaugural women’s Olympic freestyle team in Athens, had other reasons to change up her training “a very well-documented tenure as a law student at Yale after getting her undergraduate degree at Stanford.
“The biggest difference heading into the Olympic year is that I sort of chose to do what I’m doing a little bit more than what I was doing last time,” explained Miranda, who stepped away from competition after her bronze to concentrate on school.
“The retirement year was important in the way that I feel I’m getting so much more out of my competitions and training,” she said. “I’m trying to push my wrestling to the next level and without fear. By focusing on that, it’s going to give me much more an outcome-friendly outcome. The experience in Athens is going to help.”
If the trio doesn’t represent the U.S. on this year’s World Team, it doesn’t make it any easier for those that compete at the respective weights, as the World Championships in Azerbaijan in September are crucial for qualifying the weight class for the 2008 Olympics.
It’s a process Vering knows well from his experience in 2003 when France hosted the 2003 Greco-Roman World Championships.
The Olympic Games competitions are restrictive in the fact there’s a limit of approximately 20 wrestlers per weight and the first qualifier is the previous year’s World Championships. If a country places in the Top 10 at 2007 Worlds, the weight is qualified for the Olympics and would prevent heavy world travel and extraneous training for the athletes representing the non-qualified weight just to get the U.S. into the 2008 games.
“This is such a humungous year for the U.S,” said Vering. “I had 45 guys in my weight, after the tournament was over, the most one team had was four qualifiers of weights, there was only two full teams “Russia and Greece.”
“Right now, the competition is tougher than ever. It’s going to be a heavy year with a lot of pressure and we have to get those weight classes qualified.”
While Miranda’s eyeing redemption with a hopeful match with nemesis Hitomi Sakamoto of Japan up at 51 kilos, Bono could see one of his long-time rivals this weekend in Vegas “2006 World Champion Bill Zadick.
Zadick, who hasn’t competed since winning world gold last year, will have to navigate through the one-day challenge tournament to get a shot at Bono in a two-out-of-three finals series.
“I know I’m going to be there,” said Bono. “Whether he gets there or not, it’s up to him. I don’t have a preference.”
“I like wrestling him, plus he’s the world champion. I’d love to beat the world champion to go to the worlds. He’s the champ, that’s something I’m going after.”
And then there’s the history.
“We’re old school Iowa-Iowa State. That tradition, that rivalry runs deep,” said Bono. “Even though I’m not at Iowa State anymore, if it comes down to it, it’s in the back of our minds. Just getting on the team and winning a gold medal is all I’m thinking about.”
“I’m a 33-year old man right now and I never know when it’s going to be my last time, my last day,” said Bono.
“I’ve enjoyed this process so much more, I haven’t retired, but I feel reborn. I feel re-energized and re-focused.”
The 2007 U.S. World Team Trials will be hosted by the Las Vegas Convention Center. For a complete schedule of events, visit the official host site by clicking the link below.
http://www.usawrestlinglasvegas.com/
Wrestling Gear
