Calgary — This being wrestling, Christine Nordhagen-Vierling is working on her lines. Not the "I'm gonna tear 'em to pieces" diatribe you hear on the pro circuit. Rather, the 10-time Canadian national champion and six-time world champion is working on the lines she will quietly repeat before beginning her quest to win the first Olympic gold medal awarded in women's freestyle wrestling.
Polishing her mantra, as well as tearing her rivals to pieces, has been Nordhagen-Vierling's trademark since she won her first senior world title in 1994.
Back then, her coach gave the wrestler a few phrases to help calm her nerves before a match. Since then, her coach has taken on an expanded role and become her husband. It's made for an interesting subplot in what is sure to be a hot story: National team coach leads wife/star athlete to Olympic showdown.
And yet for Nordhagen-Vierling and Leigh Vierling, their working relationship is no big deal. What is important is their chance to seize the moment and make history, which is why they're so big on mental preparation and the power of empowering words.
"Leigh gave me some phrases to go over so I could focus on something positive," Nordhagen-Vierling said. "They were the most important thing I took with me to the 1993 world championships [where she placed second]. I'd say them like, 'I, Christine, am a healthy, confident, powerful individual. You, Christine, are a healthy, confident, powerful individual. She, Christine, is a healthy, confident, powerful individual.'
"Then, I'd say, 'I, Christine, have the boldness and drive to make anything happen. You, Christine .....' I'd repeat them and it was cool because I was in this zone. I was ready to go and I wasn't scared.
"We're working on new lines for Athens."
Nordhagen-Vierling, 33, is confident and powerful enough to win a medal for Canada in the 72-kilogram class of a sport that will make its debut in the middle of the Athens schedule. But never in her competitive life will she encounter anything so overwhelming and pressure-packed as an Olympic Games.
It's a fact her coach acknowledges while trying to juggle training regimens and the intrusion of a planned television documentary dubbed Girls Don't Fight.
"I've spoken to [former wrestler] Chris Wilson and he was an Olympian in Barcelona [in 1992]," Vierling said. "For him, he'd been a strong Olympic gold-medal favourite and he ended up eighth. And he said, 'I don't want that happening to her. You have to realize there's going to be these invasions, all this media. For her, it's going to be huge.'
"So he said, 'Why don't you contact someone?' We went out with [former Olympic speed-skating champion] Catriona Le May Doan. It was a good education."
Nordhagen-Vierling and Vierling are as much into planning as they are positive thinking.
He's a Calgary-raised former national wrestling champ turned women's coach who has also worked as a motivational speaker. She was born in the farming hamlet of Valhalla Centre, northwest of Grande Prairie, Alta., and is a teacher on leave who fell in love with wrestling while attending Edmonton's University of Alberta. She transferred to the University of Calgary in 1994 to be closer to Vierling, then her boyfriend.
The two trained together and were inseparable. Vierling coached on a voluntary, unpaid basis and taught Nordhagen the finer points of mental toughness.
"Leigh helped me out a lot," Nordhagen-Vierling said. "He was my friend at the time, a guy I really had a big crush on. He gave me some pointers on mental preparation, which I'd never even heard about. All I'd been taught before was technique. Here I was going to the worlds and I wasn't even prepared."
Unfortunately for Vierling, he wasn't allowed to accompany his girlfriend to the 1994 world championships because of Canadian Wrestling Federation concerns over nepotism.
"I said, 'If I have to choose to be your boyfriend or your coach, I'll choose to be your boyfriend.' So I took a step back that next year and I didn't coach Christine," Vierling said. "Ironically, she went to the [1995] worlds and she . . . how would you say you did?"
"Not very good," Nordhagen-Vierling answered.
"She ended up fourth," Vierling said, "but she lost 10-0 to a girl she'd beaten the year before in the final. So I was in a bit of a dilemma. Do I put my little feelings on the shelf and get back in there? And I said, 'Okay, I'll coach again.' Somewhere between 1995 and 1996, I was asked to be the [Canadian team] head coach.
"I had three athletes on the [1996 world championship] team. One came first, that was Christine, one came second and one came fourth. I think the CWF wasn't too worried after that."
Nordhagen and Vierling were married in 1999. Their partnership is based on a profound respect for one another and a gung-ho philosophy. Nordhagen-Vierling is the first to admit that living with her coach/husband is much like "being married to [motivational speaker] Anthony Robbins."
She also knows Vierling's promptings are important to her doing well in Greece.
The past two years certainly tested Nordhagen-Vierling's resolve.
After winning the 2001 world title, she underwent arthroscopic surgery in both knees and took time off. She returned to competition in 2003 assuming she'd pick up where she left off, but her timing was sluggish, which led to other injuries. She lost more matches than at any other point in her career.
"I just assumed I'd be exactly where I left off," she said. "I wasn't. Not being able to be as strong in certain positions, the timing was off, everything was not quite right. I got other injuries, the whole year I was plagued by a variety of hurts."
Last summer, she finally began to feel healthy and was strong in several events, including the Canadian Olympic trials and a tourney test in Athens. Having handled virtually everything her sport can throw at her, Nordhagen-Vierling has vowed not to be rattled in Athens.
"I do a lot of talking to myself, putting it into perspective that this is a great opportunity," she said. "I mean, how many people get the chance to represent their country in an Olympic Games? So instead of being freaked out, I want to feel there's nothing scary about it."
Her coach/husband agrees, knowing that Nordhagen-Vierling's toughest competition will come from five-time world and current champion Kyoko Hamaguchi of Japan. Hamaguchi's father was a pro wrestler who trained in Calgary.
"A lot of people look at the grandeur of the event, [and say] 'who am I to think I can be a gold medalist at the Olympic Games?' We're trying to give it its due, but we're going to be walking out there against 11 other athletes," he said.
"We've done our homework against the best of them. We've watched them on video. I know their wrestling better than they know it. So Christine's not afraid to go for it."
As a healthy, confident, powerful individual. With the boldness and drive to make anything happen. It's all so simple, she said: Say the words, believe the words, then tear 'em to pieces.
