Olympic rings to wedding rings

Posted: Saturday, Jul 26, 2008 - 07:44:52 pm PDT
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By ROD HARWOOD
Sports writer 

Courtesy photo Ian Waltz proposed to Stacy Dragila in February. Wedding plans won't be addressed until some time after the Beijing Olympics.

Post Falls' Waltz off to Beijing after proposal to fellow track star

POST FALLS -- If you saw them playing in the waves on Gold Beach on the Oregon coast or running the ATVs through the sand dunes, you might think they're just another couple from Eugene.

He's a big guy, beard, wears a headband when he's working, a ballcap when he's not. She's a fit, athletic woman, not beyond tugging on a ballcap when she's away from it all.

They have competed before European royalty, in stadiums full of appreciative fans.

She's a nine-time U.S. outdoor champion and Olympic gold medalist. He just won his third national title and is going to try to match her medal in Beijing at the XXIX Olympiad.

Ian Waltz and Stacy Dragila aren't exactly the typical Idaho couple, but they do carry that free spirit in their worldly travels.

Waltz, from Post Falls, won the discus at the U.S. trials in July to make his second Olympic team.

They were hoping to make it a pair, but Dragila, the former Idaho State University standout who won the gold medal in the women's pole vault in 2000 in Sydney, struggled with the wind at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., and failed to make her third consecutive Olympic team.

"At least one of us is going," Dragila said.

The "us" that is Waltz and Dragila was well documented by NBC Olympics.com and other media outlets when Waltz proposed in February.

Waltz's elaborate proposal included a homemade DVD documenting a trip to Ocean Beach in San Diego, where he carved the words "will you marry me?" into sandstone.

Dragila watched the video when she returned home from competing at the Millrose Games in New York City, then found Waltz waiting on one knee with the engagement ring.

There's no wedding plans just yet. They met at a track meet, imagine that, and got to know one another better when Dragila moved to the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif., to rehab an Achilles tendon.

They've been dating a little over two years now, and the big guy did have to admit it's taken on a different perspective going from watching her as some girl at the meet, compared to his girl at the top of the runway.

"I'm way more nervous watching her than I ever am competing myself," said Waltz, a three-time state champion who still owns the Idaho all-class record in the discus (203 feet, 9 inches).

"It's been pretty special with the other half being an athlete because they understand what you go through. She's very supportive and I couldn't ask for a better half. She has something I dream of having -- a gold medal. She's an icon to the sport and it's cool to have her advice and support going into the Games."

Dragila is currently in Europe competing and will catch up with Waltz, his mom and dad Ron and Sue, and the family in Tokyo, where'll they'll fly to China together.

"We had talked about (marriage) and I thought he would ask me after the Games, so I was surprised," Dragila said. "I have wedding ideas on my mind and it's been a good distraction because I've been so focused on my training.

"I needed something positive outside of track, but I couldn't get too carried away because training needs to come first. He's so supportive; we were talking about careers. How long? When are we going to have kids? And he just said, 'Do this for as long as you want.'"

Where age eventually becomes a factor in the pole vault, which is based on speed down the runway among other things, throwers actually get better as they get older.

Any advice on how to throw the disc? She just laughed.

"All I tell him is to be patient," Dragila said. "I think he's ready to do some great things. He's a potential medalist. With him being so confident right now, with some quality throws under his belt, anything can happen."

He lives in Chula Vista at the Olympic Training Center. She has a duplex in Pocatello and still uses the facilities at Idaho State.

Between training, travel and competition, they've still been able to make their relationship work. But when it's just them, those Idaho roots tend to surface.

"We bought an RV and a toy hauler. We both have quads and we like to go to the sand dunes," Stacy said. "The last couple of years we've gone to the Oregon coast, gone crabbing, rode our bikes in the sand, met up with family and friends and just got away. The Oregon coast is great because it has all these great tree-lined roads.

"We both love the outdoors so much and we like to do the outdoor thing."

They usually take some time in the fall, get away and get reacquainted.

As for the one of "us" who's going to the Games, he has as good a shot as anybody.

Gerd Kanter from Estonia is the reigning world champion with a world best mark of 235-8. He's currently the favorite with five of the top 10 throws in the world so far.

But when it comes right down to it, there are just four throwers who have posted all of those marks -- Kanter (235-8), Virgilijus Alekna of Lithuania (233-7, 226-7), Ehsan Hadadi, the Iranian who won a gold medal at the 2004 Junior World Championships (227-4, 226-7) and Waltz (226-1).

Kanter and Alekna are the only two with marks over 70 meters (229-6).

But they will be throwing in an enclosed stadium in Beijing, neutralizing the wind factor. Waltz, who goes in as the top American, says 217 feet could get to the podium.

"To be on my second Olympic team is an amazing feeling, but it's a different mindset than before," he said. "In 2004, I just wanted to make the team and peaked out for trials.

"This time, making the team is like climbing half the mountain. I'm continuing to train to get ready for the ultimate goal, which is to medal."

The mountain is high, as are his goals, but he'd have it no other way than to go through the best in the world to get there.

"Gerd Kanter won worlds last year and has the best throw right now. Virgilijus Alekna has kind of been the man," Waltz explained. "He's the best of all-time, won the last Olympics, won every world championship, except last year. He's one of the best ever in our sport and Kanter has the third-best throw in the world all-time. So we have some really good guys competing right now, but you never know what can happen."

Waltz grew up in Butte Falls in southern Oregon, which didn't even have a track at the school, let alone a track and field program.

It wasn't until the family moved to Idaho that he got interested.

"We moved to Post Falls my eighth-grade year and I basically started track as a freshman. I actually liked the shot better," said Waltz, who is a two-time Idaho A-1 state shot put champion.

"My freshman year I didn't even spin (in the discus). I used to just do a standing throw. At regionals, I finally did a spin and it went something like 118 feet. By my senior year (1995), I threw 203-9, which was the farthest high school throw in the country (that year). So I'm thinking at that point, I had the potential to be an Olympian if I got in the right environment."

The summer after his sophomore year in high school included working at the Iron Wood Thrower Development Camp, which was started by Bart Templeman and Waltz's Olympic Training Center coach, Bud Rasmussen, a former North Idaho College throws coach.

He had a chance to work with Mac Wilkins of Oregon, an Olympic gold medalist in 1976 in Montreal and a silver medalist in '84 in Los Angeles.

"Mac was pretty cool. I had him sign my shoes and my discus, about anything I could find," Waltz said. "He watched some of my film and said, 'Hey, you have pretty decent technique.'"

In the magic that is Hayward Field in Track Town USA, it was Wilkins who gave the kid from Post Falls a medal for winning the Olympic trials and a word of encouragement before America's best heads off to Beijing.