ACCOMPLISHMENTS
• 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist
• 3 World Medals
• Pan American Gold
• World University Gold
• 8x Canadian Champion


 Diary & Thoughts
  • Thank Yous in No Particular Order - August 21st, 2008

    I have had the great fortune to know many great people and their influences in my life have been substantial. The last few days I have been talking to a lot of media types and I have had the opportunity to mention a few of the people who have made a difference in my life. I think I'd like to take this opportunity to try again.

    Thank you to my parents who taught me what it is to work hard for something you believe in and are passionate about. Thank you for teaching me to fight hard to realize my dreams.

    Thank you to my siblings for teaching me to laugh and understanding my committment to excelling at my sport through all these years.

    Thanks to the community of Hazelton for all your support, I appreciate your efforts and I felt all of your positive energy. Special thanks to my wrestling moms and Kate – hugs and kisses!

    Thanks to my friends for your support over the years dealing with the stress and pressures of high performance sport. Special thanks to Emily, Shannon, Danny and my other BMWC peeps for understanding why I left and loving me and supporting me the whole way.

    Thanks to my friends and teammates in Calgary who trained with me and supported me this last year. Special thanks to Brit for all your help, encouragement, advice and just putting up with me this last while and for travelling all the way to Beijing with me.

    Thanks to my coaches over my (long) career:

    Joe and Chuck, you guys started it all. Thanks for caring and making it fun.

    Mike, I would never have made it if you hadn't put your faith in me. Thanks for teaching me most of what I know. Thanks for understanding why I left and I want you to know you will always be my coach, thanks for being there for me at trials.

    Leigh, you've been my coach and my friend for almost a decade and I am so happy that we could share in this whole experience together, thanks for believing in me.

    Paul, you've taught me so much in such little time. Thank you for putting your time and effort into this journey, I am so happy that you were in my corner.

    To my many mentors, (Selwyn, Lyndsay, Sharp, Christine, Tonya...) thank you for pushing me to excel and teaching me, not only wrestling skills, but an attitude geared toward success.

    Thank you to my Olympian teammates for making this journey so special. There was a sense of comraderie and that we were in it together. Thanks for your support! You all performed so well and should be proud of what you have accomplished, congratulations to all of you.

    Thanks Mac for getting me faster, higher, stronger.

    Thank you Matt and Derek for believing in me and helping me to believe in myself!

    Thank you Nadine, Jeremy, Scott, Nicole, Rick and Surinder for keeping my body whole and for your support!

    Thanks to the Biggs for being my family too (love and support in abundance).

    And of course, thank you to my husband Dan, who has been so supportive and understanding throughout the last 5 years of my life. Thanks for putting up with me and thanks for all that you do.

    Sincerely Yours,

    Carol Huynh

  • August 16th, 2008

    I had weighed in yesterday and received my draw, and it was looking pretty good. Many of the favorites were on the other side of the draw. I had wrestled many of the people on my side of the draw and I knew what I had to do. Take it one match at a time, one point at a time.

    My first match against Azerbaijan was a little shaky, but I kept wrestling and was not discouraged even though she scored a takedown and turn. I adjusted well to her offense and stayed focused and thats what won the match.

    I had Korea next and I was nervous, but I had wrestled her many times before because her team had come to train with us a couple of times this last year. I knew she was very quick and can scramble very well. I was patient and wrestled a very strategic match against her. I was a little flat and maybe a little too patient, as I went into the clinch in the second round. But I managed to make it out of the match as the winner.

    Kazakhstan was my next opponent and I was nervous but excited for this match as I had lost to her last January at World Cup. I knew I was a lot more prepared and confident that I was the better wrestler. I have worked alot on staying on the mat and not getting pushed around and closing out my opponent in the last seconds of a round. My training paid off and I was off to the gold medal match!

    I was feeling so confident in my abilities and my knowledge of my opponent -- Japan. I had wrestled her many times before and had never beaten her before. I started the match off with a bang and I know I had already made her start doubting herself. It really started to sink in after I took her out of bounds for 3 points! I had no doubts in my mind and when I scored a takedown with a turn in the first 30 seconds of the second round, I was feeling invincible. I knew I just had to wrestle smart and tactical and there would be no way that she would score on me. In the last minute of the round, I knew that she would start getting desperate. I know that she beat the Ukrainian in the last few seconds with a throw, so I was ready for her to attempt something similar on me. The refs gave her a point because I was backing up too much to avoid her getting a hold on me, but it didn't make a difference because there were only 4 seconds left and I made sure she didn't get a chance to generate offense.

    The moment I knew it was over and I had won an Olympic gold medal, I raised my arms up and started screaming. I couldn't believe it, I was ecstatic and couldn't wait to celebrate with my coaches in the corner and my friends and family who were going nuts in the crowd. It was an unbelievable experience, I still feel like it didn't really happen, that if i were to pinch myself, I'll wake up and it never happened...so I'll refrain from pinching myself -- ever!

  • August 5th is my departure date...

    I will be leaving Calgary on Tuesday, August 5th on board an airplane that will take me to Vancouver and then, next stop, Beijing!!

    Arriving on the 6th, along with my teammates, I will enter the Olympic village and hopefully get a whole new wardrobe of Canada Olympic Gear soon after! We will stay in the village, take part in the Opening Ceremonies and then leave the village on the 9th to stay at the Canadian International School, than has so generously hosted us several times prior.

    The Canadian International School is not far from the Village and it has everything we need while we are there - a wrestling mat, swimming pool, workout gym, sauna, and renovated classrooms for our sleeping quarters.

    I weigh in on August 15th and will compete the following day.

    My weight class will have 17 entries, so I have a maximum of 5 matches to get into the finals. I'm nervous but the excitement is building and I just want to go out there and do the thing I've been training to do for almost half my life - WRESTLE!

  • Short training stint at Brock University in St. Catherines, Ontario
    July 21 - 24, 2008

    My National Team Coach, Leigh Vierling and I went to St. Catherines to train with Tonya Verbeek and Sayeed Azerbaijani's wrestling club, both of which are also competing at the Olympic Games. Their coach, Marty Calder, will also be joining us in Beijing.

    It was great to have different training partners and another coach's perspective.

    I really appreciate how everyone in the room would cheer us on and help in any way they could.

    Thanks very much to the wrestlers who trained with me that week and were so encouraging and helpful.

  • Canada Cup and National Team Training Camp in Guelph, Ontario
    June 27 - 29 and June 30 - July 4, 2008

    I had decided not to compete at this tournament, but to attend the training camp.

    It was a great camp. Wrestlers from all over the country were there to train and my training partners were all very supportive of my journey to the Olympic Games.

    The camp was hectic at first with 2 training sessions a day and Olympic Team meetings and photo shoots and info sessions and media training sessions thrown into the mix.

    I enjoyed being with my teammates and the support staff who will be accompanying us to Beijing. There was a sense of camaraderie and a feeling that we were in this together and I know with the mounting pressure and the high volume of intense training, we all needed a little extra support.

  • European Tour 2008, Sheffield, England and Pitesti, Romania, June 7-15
    We left on a Wednesday night on June the 4th. We flew to London, then on to Manchester where we then got onto a bus to Sheffield. It took about an hour and a half to reach our destination and it was about 5 in the evening when we arrived. We quickly had to get down to business as we had our weigh-ins the next evening. Everything went without a hitch and I even slept in until around 10:30 am, which is amazing. Sleeping on these trips can be a little dicey at the best of times.

    I expected that the tournament wouldn't be very strong, as Great Britain never really had a team. However, they had recently hired the Ukrainian coach to come coach for Great Britain and consequently, the GBR women's team now consists mostly, if not entirely of Ukrainian women.

    It was a 2 day tournament for some reason, perhaps they had been anticipating a greater number of participants, I found I was in a round robin situation with 3 competitors - 2 from GBR/Ukraine and one from Norway. They were all about the same level of skill/experience, unfortunately for them, it was below my skill level;)

    After the tournament was finished in Sheffield we headed to London for a couple of days before going to our next destination. We got to see some sights - Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the London Eye, the Parliament Buildings, and we did some shopping around Covent Gardens. We bought tickets to see the Lord of the Rings Musical, which we made with about 2 minutes to spare! The show was amazing, for anyone who is a fan of the LTR trilogy, they would appreciate the special effects including Shelob the spider and the black riders as well Gandalf's confrontation of the Balrog (my geeky side coming out).

    We had to leave London and head to Romania for our next tournament. We took a 3.5 hour flight to Bucharest and a 2 hour drive to the city of Pitesti. I had thought that this tournament would be better attended, we were under the impression that the Mongolian team would be there and Romania had qualified for the Olympics in weight class. I had also seen the Venezuelan that had beaten me at the 2007 World championships for bronze at the host hotel. At weigh-ins however, we discovered that I would be in a round robin situation again with 4 Romanians, none of them the one who had qualified for Beijing and the Venezuelan had scratched her name off the list for no apparent reason!

    The next day I wrestled 4 times and it was great practice, but i wish that I could have competed against some better competitors. I had gone into these competitions wanting to have the experience of competing in a tournament and I wanted to push myself physically and try some of the things I've been working on in practice sessions. I did learn from my experiences on this European tour that I will take home with me and use in my training in the time I have left leading up to the Olympics.

  • Hazelton Tour, April 1-6
    I had an amazing time in Hazelton. I spoke at a number of schools including my old elementary school and my old high school. I was pretty nervous, but so well received that I just had a lot of fun! It was great to see my teachers and I also met the children of some of my old class mates!

    Thank you to all the students and staff at Hazelton Secondary, New Town Elementary, South Town Elementary, John Field Elementary, Smithers Secondary and Walnut Park Elementary for all their wonderful pictures and messages and the warm welcome. Thanks so much for your enthusiasm and I hope that you remember my message!

    The Gitanmaax Fire Hall put on a car wash fundraiser for me, which was a wonderful surprise and greatly appreciated - Thanks to all the firefighters and other volunteers that made that happen! I tried to help out a little bit and it was great fun to try to handle that fire hose!

    I also wanted to say thanks to all the community members that bought t-shirts, I'm sorry I didn't have more!

    Some great people in the community organised a fundraiser for me and my family. It was held at the high school cafeteria and there were so many people who came to help. I was so surprised and honoured at the amount of support that my home town was able to give. I saw a lot of people I hadn't in a long time and it warmed my heart to know that so many people are rooting for me and really proud of what I have accomplished. Its pretty amazing for such a small town to have produced not one, but two Olympians!

    I really don't want to attempt to thank everybody that had a hand in making the whole tour happen because I know I will miss some. I will say thanks to Kate Eckfeldt who was absolutely indispensable and such a wonderful help to me. Thanks to everyone who helped out - you know who you are!

    Watch out for me on TV this summer, I compete on August 16th in Beijing, China!!

  • 1st Place - Canadian National Championships in Guelph Ontario, March 29, 51 kg
    Well, this year was very different going into a National Championship tournament. I had already qualified for the Olympics and I was already guaranteed a spot on the World Championship team that year. So, I went in with nothing to prove, I just wanted to use the tournament as practice for the “big show” in August.

    I decided I would go up a weight class. There was no sense in cutting to scratch weight, so I wrestled at 51kg. I knew that I would have some tough opponents and people I wouldn't normally wrestle. It would be a nice change of pace. There happened to be 7 or 8 competitors and I was fortunate enough to have wrestled the best 3.

    I wrestled Jessica Bondy from Brock University in Ontario. It was a tough match, she won the first round because I scored only 2 1pt takedowns, whereas she scored 1 2pt move. I went on to win the next 2 rounds, but I wasn't very happy with my performance.

    I wrestled Vanessa Brown from the Rebels wrestling club in Calgary and won in 2 rounds.

    I was in the finals with my teammate Gen Hayley. She is a tough competitor, a 3x member of the Junior World team, but experience won over youth! I now have my 8th National Championship title, but this time in the 51 kg weight class.

  • Although I am not happy about my performance in Belarus, I learned a lot. Most of the time you learn more from losing than winning. I will take the experience and use it to improve on future performances.
  • One thing I have to remember is that it is important to have a strong desire to win, but that desire should have a positive effect on my wrestling, not a negative one: Be confident to take chances and risks to win instead of being afraid to lose.