COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — It is the opportunity of a lifetime.
For Mount Vernon wrestler and Olympic hopeful Vanessa Oswalt, it was almost an opportunity lost.
Speaking from the U.S. Olympic Training Facility in Colorado Springs, Colo., Oswalt, who is ranked sixth nationally, said, “I moved out here the weekend after Junior Nationals, which was the first weekend (last) August. They wanted to start a young group of wrestlers because all of the current residents are in their mid-20s. So, pretty much, if you were a top girl out of high school they were looking at having you on the team. I had won USGWA tournaments up in Michigan, twice, and I won Junior Nationals. So pretty much, in the tournaments that I wrestle with females, I have been pretty successful. If your credentials were good enough, you were chosen.”
Oswalt was one of only three or four girls chosen.
Oswalt just took sixth at the Senior Nationals at 63 kilos, or 138.75 pounds. All of this is amazing, almost miraculous, when one considers this was her first tournament back from a devastating injury.
At the end of October 2005, after only two months in Colorado Springs, Oswalt’s dreams were nearly crushed when she completely tore her ulna collateral ligament in her arm and had to have reconstructive surgery.
“The doctors pretty much cut (the ligament) off and threw it in the trash and they just took part of my hamstring tendon,” said Oswalt.
The doctors grafted the hamstring tendon to Oswalt’s arm in a variation of what people once commonly called the “Tommy John surgery.”
Oswalt quickly moved into the fast lane on the comeback road.
“I was out until the beginning of March, when I came back and started drilling, then about two weeks before nationals, I started live wrestling, which is much more intense,” said Oswalt. “Then, I competed in the Senior Nationals and then, I competed in a tournament this past weekend, so I have only been back for about two months wrestling.”
Today, such surgery is more common place, but Oswalt’s doctors were not prepared for the speed of her progress.
“The ligament is stronger, but I feel the muscles are weaker, because I haven’t been able to be 100 percent, but I am trying to work it back,” said Oswalt. “I just saw the doctor and he said that after all the competing that I have done, it is inflamed right now. They said that most baseball players are out for two years and I am in my sixth month. They were surprised that I was working out two months ago and that I was competing so soon.”
The doctors were concerned that Oswalt was rushing things. She agrees.
“I feel that I might have rushed into things a little too soon, because I still have aches and pains,” she said. “They said it will be like that for the next year. After trials at the end of June, I think that I will take a couple of months off and fully recover.”
Oswalt’s next major objective on her way to a shot at the 2008 Olympic team is the World Team Trials in June. Getting there is a process that Oswalt takes one day at a time.
“I get up about 8 o’clock and I go down into the sports meds, which is on the complex, too. I go do rehab and I am working on my elbow, trying to get it stronger. We have practice at 10 until 12. Normally, our practices are pretty intense. Then, depending on the day, we will either have a list, or we will have another practice at 6 o’clock, so we have two-a-days — everyday, year round,” said Oswalt.
Coming from a family that is dedicated to wrestling, Oswalt’s decision to take up the sport was easy.
“I decided to start wrestling when I was in the second grade,” she recalled. “I had been around the sport with my brother. He was a little bigger than me, but I was pretty much his little guinea pig. In the second grade, my parents threw me into wrestling to see how I liked it and, over the years, I really enjoyed it. When I got to middle school, they started having girls tournaments and I started placing first in all of those tournaments, and I realized that this is a sport where I had a lot of potential.”
She gets a great deal of support from her family, especially from her father, wrestling coach Mike Oswalt.
“I talk to him and I tell him that my elbow hurts and he says to me, ‘You know, there’s a lot of girls that do not get this opportunity and you are out there, so you better take full advantage of it,’” said Oswalt. “And he is just trying to be that tough love and he tells me that he is so proud of me and how far I have come.”
Anyone who is interested in donating to Oswalt’s Olympic hopeful cause can e-mail her at .
