Carolyn Failanga is on her stomach, leveraging every advantage as she, red-raced and grimacing in the gold medal bout of the 2011 senior girls provincial championships, resists the opposing forearm that pushes against her throat. A head snap put her in control and Failanga has wrapped her arm around her competitor's neck and flattened her to the mat.
A voice cuts through. "Hold it! Hold it, Carolyn!"
The whistle blows, Failanga wins. It's the second girls wrestling gold for Vancouver's St. Patrick regional secondary school in 12 years.
She congratulates her opponent, her hand is raised in victory. The next moment is what school principal John Bevacqua remembers most from the February provincials last year in Penticton. Failanga crosses the mat to her coach, Canadian Olympic wrestler Marc Mongeon, and hugs him.
"The lasting image I have of her, she's running full speed and jumping into his arms after she won," said Bevacqua. "She has that real raw emotion about her. She's a loving kid that way. After the award ceremony, she called him a second dad."
Failanga met Mongeon, who competed at the 1984 Los Angeles Games in freestyle wrestling, when she was in Grade 8. "I didn't know what wrestling was all about. It was a challenge at the beginning. My first year I won one match."
She wore the same maroon singlet over five years and competed consistently in the 51-kilogram weight class.
By her senior year, she qualified for the B.C. championships and beat the pack to win gold. She caught the attention of Vancouver's wrestling elite and her influence helped grow the school's program. She volunteered to coach younger athletes new to the sport, score-keep and ensure tournaments ran as smoothly as possible.
Wrestling B.C. awarded her with a scholarship for her community involvement. She earned an athletic scholarship to Simon Fraser University where she now competes as a freshman with Canada's only NCAA school. At the junior national meet last week in St. Catherine's, Ont., Failanga went 4-2 to finish fifth overall and won her last bout in a decisive 5-0 score. "I'm still working on being an offensive wrestler," said Failanga, who is studying health science. "Before, in high school, I could just wait for a girl to take a shot or do a throw and I would go and counter it but in university, you have to be consistently aggressive and offensive at the same time as well as have a good defensive base."
At five-foot-two and now wrestling in the 48kg class at what is likely her optimum weight, Failanga changed people's expectations of wrestling when she first started.
The reaction narrowed in on her size, personality and, to a very limited extent, her gender.
"You're so small," she said classmates once exclaimed. "You can't beat them, you look so gentle."
Mongeon offered with a laugh, "You don't look very mean!"
"You don't look very manly," she added. "Yes, I get those comments."
But because of her demeanour and interest in giving back, Failanga is helping attract more teenage girls to wrestling.
As the head of SFU's development program, John Pineda has the keen eye of a scout and the technical tools of a coach to identify and enhance young wrestlers. He immediately liked what he saw in Failanga.
"She's definitely a gifted athlete. She has that natural feel for the sport. She can go a long way." Then Pineda made a remarkable comparison.
"She reminds me of Carol Huynh, who is our Olympic champion."
Both wrestle in the 48 kg class, both are British Columbian women of Asian heritage and Huynh, an SFU graduate, won gold in Beijing and has already qualified for the 2012 London Games. "They are similar in size but the good thing is that Carol will be around for a lot longer afterwards to help the girls," said Pineda.
Huynh will be in good company.
[email protected] Twitter: @MHStewart
