Christine Nordhagen
The farm girl who won six world wrestling titles
- Born
- June 26, 1971, Valhalla Centre, Alberta, Canada
- Nationality
Canada- Height
- 171 cm (5′7″)
- Weight
- 68 kg, 70 kg, 72 kg, 75 kg
- Active
- 1992–2004
- Status
- Retired · age 55
The medals
6 world titles (8 world medals); fifth at the 2004 Olympics
The story
hristine Nordhagen grew up on a farm in Valhalla Centre, Alberta, and did not try wrestling until she was 20, while studying education at the University of Alberta. She won titles at Canada's first women's national championships in 1992, took world silver in 1993 and then became the dominant force in the sport: world champion in 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2001, at weights from 68 to 75 kg. In 2000 she beat Japan's Kyoko Hamaguchi on her way to the title. Her coach and later husband, Leigh Vierling, taught her mental preparation, including positive phrases she repeated before matches. Surgery on both knees slowed her after 2001, but she helped bring women's wrestling into the Olympics and placed fifth in Athens in 2004. In 2006 she became the first woman in wrestling's international Hall of Fame.
- World champion ×6 (1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001)
- World silver (1993) and bronze (1999) medallist
- Pan American champion (1997, 1998)
- Canadian champion ×10
- FILA Top International Female Wrestler (1997)
- FILA International Wrestling Hall of Fame (2006), its first woman
- Canadian Amateur Wrestling Association Hall of Fame
- Alberta Sports Hall of Fame (2010)
Defining matches
- 1997WINvs Sandra Bacher (World final, Clermont-Ferrand, 68 kg; Bacher retired)
- 1998WINvs Stéphanie Groß (World final, Poznań, 68 kg, 13-0)
- 2000WINvs Kyoko Hamaguchi (World semifinal, Sofia, 75 kg, 9-4)
- 2000WINvs Edyta Witkowska (World final, Sofia, 75 kg, 6-2)
- 2001WINvs Toccara Montgomery (World final, Sofia, 68 kg, 4-1; sixth world title)
Nordhagen treated training as money in the bank and tournaments as the time to spend it, and she went into matches repeating a few short positive lines. Write your own two-line pre-match script and rehearse it before every practice round, so it runs automatically when the pressure comes.
