SAMMIE HENSON, TRICIA SAUNDERS AND MATT GHAFFARI NAMED 1998 WRESTLERS OF THE YEAR BY U.S. OLYMPIC COMMITTEE 
 1998 World Champion Sammie Henson (Cedar Falls, Iowa/Sunkist Kids), 1998 World Champion Tricia Saunders (Phoenix, Ariz./Sunkist Kids) and 1998 World silver medalist Matt Ghaffari (Avon Lake, Ohio/Sunkist Kids) have been named the Athletes of the Year for wrestling by the United States Olympic Committee. 
 Henson received the award as the top Male Freestyle Wrestler, Saunders as the top Female Freestyle Wrestler and Ghaffari as the top Male Greco-Roman Wrestler. Saunders and Ghaffari also received this award in 1996, while Henson received the honor for the first time. 
 Athletes are nominated by the national governing bodies and disabled sports organizations. These Athletes of the Year and Teams of the Year will be reviewed by a selection committee and may become eligible for the 1998 USOC SportsMan and SportsWoman of the Year award, which will be presented at the 1998 U.S. Olympic Awards Dinner on Dec. 16 in Indianapolis, Ind. 
 Two-time Olympic Champion John Smith is the only wrestler to win the USOC SportsMan of the Year when he was honored in 1990. No woman wrestler has ever won the USOC SportsWoman of the Year. 
 Henson was the 1998 World Champion in freestyle wrestling at 119 pounds, the top U.S. wrestling performance in 1998. His victory led the United States to a third place finish in the tournament. 
 He defeated 1996 Olympic silver medalist Namik Abdullayev of Azerbaijan in the gold-medal finals, 3-1. He won five matches on the way to gold medal. The victory was impressive, as Henson was competing in his first World Championships. 
 The World Championships were held in Tehran, Iran, in September, and during his medal ceremony, the U.S. national anthem was played in that nation for the first time in almost 20 years. For his performance, Henson was named USOC Athlete of the Month for September 1998. 
 Henson had a successful international season, claiming silver medals at the prestigious 1998 Goodwill Games in New York City in July and the 1998 World Cup in Stillwater, Okla in April. These tournaments featured star athletes from the world's best international wrestling teams. 
 Henson won his first career U.S. Nationals freestyle title, with a victory in Orlando, Fla. in April. It was his second career national title on the Senior level, to go along with his 1990 Greco-Roman championship. He also claimed his first World Team Trials victory in Waterloo, Iowa in June. 
 During the winter international tour season, Henson was third in the 1998 Kiev Grand Prix in Ukraine and sixth in 1998 Yasar Dogu Tournament in Turkey. 
 Henson competes for the Sunkist Kids club. He was a two-time NCAA champion for Clemson Univ., and was an All-American at the Univ. of Missouri before transferring to Clemson. He was a three-time state champion for Francis Howell High School in Missouri. He currently works as an assistant wrestling coach at the Univ. of Northern Iowa. 
 Saunders won the World gold medal at 101.25 pounds, the top U.S. performance in at the 1998 Women's World Championships in Poznan, Poland in October. She defeated three-time World Champion Miyu Yamamoto of Japan in the gold medal finals, by a 1-1 referee's decision. 
 It was Saunders' third career World Championships gold medal. She remains the only U.S. athlete to win the Women's World Wrestling Championships. It was also her fourth career World Championships medal, tieing the U.S. record set by Shannon Williams. 
 Saunders won four matches on the way to the title, and led the U.S. team to a third place finish. Her 3-2 victory over Mettie Barlie of Norway in the semifinals was a key victory. 
 She claimed a gold medal at the 1998 U.S. Nationals Championships in Orlando, Fla. in April, her eighth career nationals title, a U.S. record. She also won the title at the 1998 Women's World Team Trials in St. Paul, Minn., qualifying for her eight U.S. World team. Saunders ended the year with a perfect 10-0 record. 
 In April, Saunders received the 1997 USA Wrestling Woman of the Year Award, the first recipient of this new major honor. This award, which recognizes contributions to the sport by a woman, was a testament to her life-long contributions to wrestling. 
 Saunders missed the entire 1997 season with a knee injury, and the birth of her second child. She is married to 1996 Olympic silver medalist freestyle wrestler Townsend Saunders. She is a member of the Sunkist Kids club, and attended the Univ. of Wisconsin. Originally from Ann Arbor, Mich., Saunders was active in wrestling programs there as a youth. She works as a bacteriologist. 
 Ghaffari won a silver medal at 286 pounds at the 1998 Greco-Roman World Championships in Gavle, Sweden in August, the top U.S. performance at the competition.  
 He won his fourth career World or Olympic medal, setting a U.S. record. The 1998 World Championships was his first international event since the 1996 Olympic Games, where he won a silver medal. Ghaffari missed over a year and a half of competition with a knee injury. 
 His only loss came in the gold-medal match to superstar Alexander Karelin of Russia, who is considered the greatest Olympic athlete in the world. Karelin, a three-time Olympic Champion and eight-time World Champion, has never lost an international wrestling match. He pinned Ghaffari in 2:00 for the title. This was a rematch of the historic 1996 Olympic gold medal match, where Karelin edged Ghaffari 1-0 in overtime. 
 Ghaffari won four matches on the way to the finals, including clutch victories over 1997 World silver medalist Mihaly Deak of Hungary and 1996 Olympic bronze medalist Sergei Murieko of Bulgaria. 
 Ghaffari won the other two events that he entered in 1998, claiming the gold medal at the 1998 Greco-Roman World Team Trials in New Orleans, La. in June and at the 1998 U.S. Nationals Championships in Orlando, Fla. in April. Ghaffari won his sixth career national title and finished the year with an impressive 11-1 record. 
 Ghaffari competes for the Sunkist Kids club. He attended Cleveland State Univ. and is originally from Paramus, N.J. He works in the financial services industry with the Brennan Financial Group of Cleveland.