Actually, that really wasn’t too shabby, considering that Miranda was, all this time, wrestling against men–most of whom outweighed her by as much as 20 pounds. “For five years people looked at me strangely, saying ‘I hope you don’t get hurt,’ or, ‘I just hope you survive’,” she says. Understandably, she fares far better pitted against women, holding the national title in the 105.5-pound division. “But if you only put yourself into safe places, then you’re never really tested. I now know I can do what I set out to do.”
What Miranda, 24, has set out to do right now is win a gold medal in Athens next summer, when women’s wrestling is competed at the Olympics for the first time. She is pursuing that goal with such relentlessness that it’s easy to see why some at USA Wrestling regard her as the toughest competitor, man or woman, on the American team. At a recent practice at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., a particularly grueling session left most of her teammates sprawled on the mat. But Miranda, who had already wrestled five bouts against bigger women, was up and bouncing on her feet. As the others dragged themselves off to the showers, she began running wind sprints, a self-imposed punishment for failing to meet her entire list of goals for that afternoon.
“Her practices, her eating habits, her sleeping habits–everything is aimed at getting the absolute maximum out of every single day,” says national-team coach Terry Steiner. At a recent team banquet, Miranda was the only one who didn’t even taste the fancy desserts. Still, such discipline doesn’t guarantee success. At the world championships this fall, she lost in the finals by a single point to a three-time world champion from Ukraine. “I cried; it was so painful it cut me in half,” says Miranda. “It was a kick in the a– to help me win in Athens.”
For all her apparent single-mindedness, Miranda is far more than the sum of her takedowns. Her father, a doctor who emigrated from Brazil, permitted her to wrestle in high school only after she promised to quit if she failed to maintain straight A’s. She got the A’s, and graduated from college Phi Beta Kappa. When the Olympics are over, she will begin wrestling with the books again, this time at Yale Law School.
Miranda says she will leave her sport behind without regret, regardless of how she fares in Athens. “I am trying to do everything humanly possible an Olympic gold medalist could do to prepare”–including training on and off the mat up to eight hours a day. “In the end, all I can ask is, ‘Did I hold myself accountable to my dream?’ "
