MPR’s Mark Steil reports on Ali Bernard, the first Minnesota female Olympian to come out of the state's high school wrestling program. She started out wrestling boys in high school, something she says helped make her the wrestler she is today and is now on mer way to the Olympics in China to compete for Team USA.
MARK STEIL: Ali Bernard smiles as she settles into a chair at the kitchen table in her family home just outside of New Ulm. Her short, dark hair streaked with blonde frames her face. At 22 years old, she's mature enough to take on the world in wrestling, but still young enough to lean on her mother when she's home.
ALI BERNARD: Me and Pop, Mom.
SPEAKER 1: Marched.
MARK STEIL: In a few days, she'll leave for the US Olympic wrestling camp. As she relaxes, Bernard analyzes the competition she'll face in Beijing.
ALI BERNARD: Last year at Worlds, it was China, Russia, and Japan, which were top three. There's a lot of world champions. But I feel like I've knocked off a couple world champions, so I'm going to be right in there.
MARK STEIL: Bernard says. The Olympic competition for women wrestlers takes place all in one day, August 17. Depending how far she goes, she may wrestle anywhere from a couple of matches to five or six. It's the sort of fast-paced competition Bernard has seen since she started wrestling at age 10.
SPEAKER 2: Welcome back, everybody, on Radio One wrestling broadcast KNUJ. New Ulm with the lead, 28-12 right now at 140 pound-match. Guess who comes out under the mat, Larry? None other than Ali Bernard.
LARRY: Ali's at it here at 140 wrestling--
SPEAKER 2: 140 pounds.
MARK STEIL: In this Radio broadcast from 2001, the high school sophomore treated her fans to a typical high-energy match. Bernard lost a close contest to her male opponent, but surprised a lot of people aggressiveness.
SPEAKER 2: Right now, Chris Adams with a 2-1 lead, but Ali Bernard power-driving at him. I think that Adams actually is wondering where she's coming from.
LARRY: Yeah.
MARK STEIL: Bernard says she learned early on to use her speed and agility against her generally stronger male opponents. After high school, Bernard attended the University of Regina in Canada. Even there, wrestling women exclusively, she says she often wasn't the strongest person in the match.
ALI BERNARD: I just have different moves. I'm really flexible. I go after the pin. I'm just a scrapper. Just a different style that most women haven't seen.
MARK STEIL: Her high school coach says there were some rough moments for the teenage girl wrestling in a male-dominated sport. Dar Arndt says that included separate dressing quarters, which might be anything from a bathroom stall to a locker room Bernard had to herself. Some teams opposed the idea of girls wrestling boys, mostly because of the physical contact wrestling is all about. Arndt says some boys forfeited their matches, refusing to wrestle Bernard.
DAR ARNDT: As I look back at her now as she's an Olympian, those guys really short-changed themselves to wrestle against a great athlete, whether it was male or female, and it was their loss not to have been able to say they wrestled her.
MARK STEIL: There was an effort about six years ago to ban girl-boy wrestling in Minnesota, but the legislation failed. One of the pioneers of women's high school wrestling in Minnesota says that action helped propel the sport forward. Chandell Knox was the first woman to wrestle in a Minnesota High School Program at Minneapolis Southwest from 1992 to '95. Knox says she met Ali Bernard when Bernard first started wrestling as a young girl.
CHANDELL KNOX: She pretty much is putting us on the map right here, seeing that a lady grown and raised in Minnesota is going all the way to the Olympics. Now she's going to have a whole bunch of other little girls looking up to her, trying to do the same thing.
MARK STEIL: In Ali Bernard's hometown of New Ulm, people are already looking up to her.
SPEAKER 3: Now, ladies and gentlemen, tonight we have a very special ceremonial first pitch, New Ulm's Ali Bernard.
MARK STEIL: Bernard delivers a strike to the catcher, then waves and walks off the field to visit with friends.
ALI BERNARD: Small town. You have to appreciate all the support. Like, you wouldn't be getting any of this if I was from a big town. So I just really appreciate it. I think it's great.
MARK STEIL: She says the hometown support is one of the memories that she'll keep close in China. There against the world's best, she'll measure how far she's traveled in the wrestling universe from her small-town roots. Mark Steele, Minnesota Public Radio News, New Ulm.
Views and opinions expressed in the content do not represent the opinions of APMG. APMG is not responsible for objectionable content and language represented on the site. Please use the "Contact Us" button if you'd like to report a piece of content. Thank you.
Transcriptions provided are machine generated, and while APMG makes the best effort for accuracy, mistakes will happen. Please excuse these errors and use the "Contact Us" button if you'd like to report an error. Thank you.