In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Anju Jason, a taekwondo athlete, was the first — and up to now, the only — Marshall Islander to qualify to represent the Marshall Islands at the Olympic level.
Marshall Islands Secretary General Terry Sasser said Friday that wrestler Waylon Muller is preparing to compete at next year’s Olympic Games after qualifying during an Oceania Championship in Samoa last month by winning a silver medal. Twenty years ago, Muller burst on the Pacific’s wrestling scene with a silver medal — also in Samoa — the first Marshall Islander to win a medal in any sport in international competition.
Muller is now training for the World Wrestling Championships in Instanbul, Turkey in September — another step on the road to the London Games in 2012. At 37, Muller is older than most of the wrestlers he will be facing. He has dominated wrestling in the Micronesian region, going undefeated, winning 10 gold medals in the quadrennial Micronesian Games since 1994.
Small countries that do not have athletes able to qualify on their own merits are given two “wild card” spots in both track and swimming that allow every nation to participate in the every-four-year Olympic Games.
By qualifying for the Olympics, Muller will boost the size of the small Marshall Islands delegation that will head half way around the world to compete in the world competition in 2012. It also makes him eligible for International Olympic Committee funding to help prepare him for London.
“There is a good sum of money he can get,” said Sasser of Muller’s situation, like that of a small handful of elite Marshall Islands athletes who have qualified in their respective sports for international competition.
“The goal is to help these elite athletes get to the Olympic Games,” said Sasser. “Waylon can go off-island to train or bring in a coach to work with him.”
Muller acknowledges that because of his age, this is probably his only shot at the Olympics. The Marshall Islands only achieved its International Olympic Committee membership shortly before the 2008 Games in Beijing, and Muller was not able to qualify then.
“I don’t want to miss this opportunity,” he said. Muller is currently training six-days a week in Majuro, with plans to spend time in an eastern Europe wrestling training program after the Turkey World Championships in September in the lead up to London.
He’s running Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and doing weight work on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and working out on the mat when he can find sparring partners. In Majuro, population about 30,000, there are no wrestlers near his caliber, which makes preparation for international competition difficult in the Marshall Islands.
“I’m looking at getting a coach here for three months of training,” Muller said.
He is keen to train off-island after the World Championships in September, and is considering going to a wrestling training center in Bulgaria.
Sasser said the National Olympic Committee will do everything it can to assist Muller to make it to the London Games to represent the Marshall Islands.
