Published: July 06, 2008 12:57 am         

Off to Beijing

New Ulm native gears up for the Olympics

NEW ULM — They call themselves the Ali Cats, and they’re a group of women who have a passion for the sport of wrestling.

They dress in navy-blue T-shirts with a slick, wildcat logo on the front and an outline of the state of Minnesota on the back. Their group’s nickname is splashed across the map, and a bright orange paw print is stamped underneath, marking this city where their sons all wrestled in high school.

Those boys are done with the sport now, but the Ali Cats have rallied around one of their sons’ old teammates, the person for whom their fan club is named.

Some of them will even travel to China next month to watch Ali Bernard wrestle in the Olympics.

“They’ve always supported me,” said Bernard, who has established herself as one of the United States’ best female wrestlers.

On June 13 in Las Vegas, the 22-year-old won the 72 kilogram (158 1/2 pounds) freestyle title at the Olympic Trials to earn the trip to Beijing and become New Ulm’s first Olympian.

“I’m hoping for a gold (medal),” Bernard admitted in an interview in the bleachers at Johnson Park. “That would be ideal. I’m working as hard as I can to try for that.”

Bernard was sitting just under a sign honoring New Ulm’s most famous athlete, three-time major league baseball all-star Terry Steinbach as she spoke. She was at the ball park because she had been invited to throw out the honorary first pitch during the Midwest Classic Junior Legion baseball tournament.

Bernard is now in Colorado Springs, Colo., preparing with her three national teammates — Clarissa Chun, Marcie Van Dusen and Randi Miller — at the U.S. Olympic Training Center before the Summer Games begin on Aug. 8 (the women’s wrestling competition is a grueling, one-day event on Aug. 17). In her short stint at home last month, she received an almost-constant flurry of congratulations, honors and media requests — more than the admittedly reserved Bernard would have liked.

“I didn’t think there would be this much talking to people,” she said. “I didn’t think people cared.”

Oh, but they do.

The Ali Cats followed Bernard to the 2004 Olympic trials in Indianapolis— “That was a real eye-opener,” Ali Cat Brenda Ruch said — and this year, they got together and gathered around a computer to watch a live video feed of Bernard as she downed Katie Downing in a best-of-three-match series in Las Vegas.

Four of them will be going to Beijing, along with Bernard’s parents, Sue and Rocky, her brother, Andy, and her three sisters, Angie, Annie and Abby. Bernard’s boyfriend and training partner, Roger Alves of Alberta, Canada, will travel with her as a personal coach.

“I felt it like it was in the cards,” Sue Bernard said.

According to Sue Bernard, Ali has been working toward getting to the Olympics and winning a gold medal since she was in high school, back when she was simply known as New Ulm’s girl wrestler, back when she teamed with and wrestled against the boys.

Back then, Bernard, who began wrestling at age 10, had to find empty bathrooms to change in and do her weigh in away from the male wrestlers. But none of that discouraged her. Instead, she set lofty goals for herself.

“I remember when she was in high school, she had to made a goal list,” Sue Bernard said. “She wrote, ‘I’m going to go to the Olympics.’ ... When women’s wrestling became a reality four years ago in the Olympics, we all knew it was a real possibility. Everybody knew she had the talent.”

Bernard, who won the U.S. national championship in her weight class in April, does have international experience. She won junior world titles in 2003 an 2005, and, has dominated collegiate competition in Canada the last four years, winning four Canadian Interuniversity Sport gold medals for the University of Regina (Saskatchewan) women’s wrestling team. She has one year of eligibility remaining with the Cougars.

But there’s something different about the Olympics.

“It’s more prestigious,” Bernard said.

The Ali Cats are even getting new T-shirts. Red, white and blue, of course.