USA Wrestling standout/future MMA athlete Mo Lawal Prepares for Olympic Games
The United States Olympic Committee, USA Wrestling and USA Judo will host a teleconference Tuesday, June 3 at 1:00 p.m. MDT (3 p.m. EDT) with USA wrestling athletes T.C. Dantzler (Colorado Springs, Colo.), Mo Lawal (Colorado Springs, Colo.) and Marcie Van Dusen (Colorado Springs, Colo.) as well as U.S. judo athletes Ryan Reser (Colorado Springs, Colo.) and Ronda Rousey (Wakefield, Mass.) as they prepare to participate in the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Wrestling and Judo, June 13-15 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nev.
After four years as a resident athlete at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., and a third-place finish at the 2004 U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Lawal has showed immense progress. In 2005, he took seventh in the World Championships, was crowned the U.S. National champion (’05, ‘06, ‘08) and took silver in the 2007 World Team Trials. The No. 2 ranked U.S. wrestler in the 96 kg weight division, Lawal is poised to make his bid for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team.
One of USA Wrestling’s high profile female wrestlers, 26-year-old Van Dusen is the No. 1 ranked U.S. female wrestler at the 55 kg weight division and has come into her own since her fifth-place finish at the 2004 U.S. Olympic Team Trials. Before 2008, Van Dusen took gold in the World Team Trials (’05, ‘07) and the U.S. Nationals. In 2008, she has surged ahead, taking silver at the Pan American Championships for the second time. She also claimed a second U.S. National Championship and went 3-0 at the World Cup where she defeated Olympic and World Champion Saori Yoshida of Japan, who had previously gone undefeated in international matches since 1998.
The first woman to win a medal at the World Championships since 1995, 21-year-old Rousey won a silver medal in the 70kg division and was one of the youngest medalists at the 2007 Worlds - a feat she’s become used to as one of the most promising young judo players in the world. At just 17, she qualified for her first Olympic Team, becoming the youngest judo player in the entire 2004 Olympic Games and she claimed a women’s team high ninth place in the 63 kg division. After the Games, Rousey became only the second U.S. athlete ever to win a gold medal at the 2004 World Junior Judo Championships in Budapest, Hungary. In February 2007, she moved up to 70kg where she has won both the 2007 Pan Am Games and two World Cup titles. Rousey is now ranked as one of the top three players in the world and is one of the top medal prospects for the United States in Beijing.
Reser - a three-time Pan Am Champion - was introduced to judo at the age of 5 by parents who were looking to keep Reser and his siblings out of trouble. By age seven he was competing in national events and ultimately chose to narrow his sports away from other sports and toward judo with the goal of competing in the Olympic Games. In 2000 and 2004, Reser was named as an alternate to the U.S. Olympic Team. Since moving from Dallas, Texas to Colorado Springs to train at the Olympic Training Center in 1998, Reser has won four National titles and earned three World Cup medals in the 73kg division.
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Posted June 3rd, 2008 l 412 views
