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Sue Bernard knew that Friday night in Las Vegas was going to be something special as daughter Ali completed a life-long dream by earning a spot on the United States Olympic Women’s wrestling team.

Ali Bernard defeated best friend Katie Downing in two straight matches to win the 158.5 pound class.

“Katie and Ali have known each other for a long time,” Sue Bernard said Saturday morning from Las Vegas. “When Ali was in eighth grade, she went to a wrestling camp at the University of Minnesota-Morris and Katie was one of her camp councilors. In fact, Katie stayed at our house a number of years ago. Friday night it was like the student defeating the teacher.”

Sue Bernard said that getting to this point has been a long road for her daughter.

“Ali has made many sacrifices to get to this point,” she said. “Nationals would be in April so she had to train before that. There were many times that she could not go out with her friends at that time and do the things that kids do. She could not have a summer job or just taking it easy like a kid does during the summer. She was always training for wrestling or traveling internationally or getting ready for a wrestling competition.”

Sue said that Ali did miss out on a lot of other sports.

“She does love softball — she was a catcher in softball and just loved that sport,” Sue said. “That was hard to give up but in order to continue with wrestling like she wanted it to be, it had to be a year-round commitment. It had to be during softball season and those choices were hard for her. You are 14,15, 16-years old and she had to make some tough decisions early on as to what she had to put on the back burner.”

While Ali captured both matches against Downing on Friday, Sue Bernard watched as her daughter became the first-ever New Ulmite to earn a spot on the United States Olympic team.

“She came out so confident — I was just so excited and nervous. She looked good and confident and she was wrestling smart. You just hope that things go her way and they did. It was nice to have family there. It is hard to describe — it was overwhelming.”

Just because she made the Olympic team it doesn’t mean the pressure is off.

“This is a big step for her,” Sue said. “I think that Ali is relieved that this is over, but she will be under pressure now because she is an Olympic athlete.”

And she will be doing more traveling.

“She will train in Colorado Springs and it looks like she will be going to New York next week for publicity and some fund-raising tours.”

Ali will be back in New Ulm for a short while before beginning training in Colorado Springs for about a month before readying herself for Beijing.

“She will be training with the other women on the Olympic team,” Sue Bernard said. “Things will be more regimented there.

“Ali is excited but she is not going to change personally. She tells me not to go telling people about her. She is just humble.”

While Ali will be making the trip to China, Sue doesn’t know what she will do.

“We will have to see,” she said. “It is pretty expensive and we may have to mortgage our house to go there. We just want to take it one step at a time but I am hoping that one of us will get over there to watch her in person. But we will have to figure that out in the next couple of days.

“This is what Ali has been working for all of her life. She has always wanted to be on the Olympic women’s wrestling team. Now when I hear ‘Ali Bernard, Olympic Athlete. I really get emotional.”

 

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