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PBS Hawaiʻi showcases Olympic wrestling hopefuls

HONOLULU, HI – PBS Hawaiʻi hosts a special broadcast presentation April 7 featuring two female wrestlers from Hawaii, just as they compete for a shot at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio.

Teshya Alo, 18, and Clarissa Chun, 34, will be in Iowa City, IA, April 9-10 at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials. Top athletes from across the nation will be there, hoping to represent the U.S.

Right before the trials, the documentary Winning Girl will make its PBS Hawaiʻi debut April 7 at 8:00 pm. The locally produced documentary follows Alo for four years, as she competes in judo and wrestling tournaments around the world. Then at 9:00 pm, a re-edited Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox features a 2013 interview with Chun, who calls wrestling a “fun but gruesome sport.” The back-to-back presentation will also feature updates from both women.

“This is a timely presentation on the monumentally determined Hawaiʻi women whose strength of body, mind and heart has taken them all the way to the 2016 Olympic wrestling trials,” said Leslie Wilcox, PBS Hawaii President and CEO.

“My mindset is just being in the moment and taking it all in because this is my last run at it,” said Chun about her preparation for this year’s Olympic Trials. “There is no more four years for me after this.” Chun previously earned a bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

For Alo, the Olympic Trials is a culmination of the training she’s gone through since age 6, saying she is “ready to deploy.” In a statement, she said: “It will be historical for me to show the world through action, not words, that dreaming big works – because I understand that dreaming means to work.”

Hawaiʻi filmmaker Kimberlee Bassford and her production company, Making Waves Films LLC, are behind Winning Girl. Previously, Bassford produced Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority, a documentary on the late U.S. Representative that aired on PBS stations nationwide in 2009.

PBS Hawaiʻi is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and Hawaii’s sole member of the trusted Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). We advance learning and discovery through storytelling that profoundly touches people’s lives. We bring the world to Hawaii and Hawaii to the world. PBSHawaii.org | facebook.com/pbshawaii | @pbshawaii