Spencer Lee on Olympics: ‘It would be wrong to say that I’m not representing Iowa’
Wrestler Spencer Lee meets with media ahead of his upcoming appearance in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Iowa women’s wrestling has its first Olympic medalist.
In her first appearance on a senior-level world stage, Team USA’s Kennedy Blades changed her status from young phenom to a star by securing a silver medal Sunday in Paris.
The Illinois native won three of her four matches, outscoring her opponents 24-12 with wins over Romania’s Catalina Axente, Cuba’s Milaimy De La Caridad Marin Potrille and Kyrgyzstan’s Aiperi Medet Kyzy. She lost to Japan’s Yuka Kagami in the gold-medal match.
With Kagami’s win over Blades, Japan won its eighth gold medal in wrestling at the Olympics. The Japan women’s team continued its long domination of the sport since its inception in 1996.
Blades opened the eyes of many with her first bout of the tournament, scoring a five-point grand amplitude throw on Axenete that may have been the highlight offensive move of the tournament to lock up a 11-0 technical fall. While known as a offensive dynamo, Blades showed poise and maturity by securing two narrow wins over Marin Potrille (4-3) and Kyzy (8-6), showing she was capable of winning the close match when the pressure was on.
Her biggest task was ahead of her vs. Kagami, a 22-year-old World champion and World silver medalist. Throughout the week, Japan has dominated the wrestling field by winning seven gold medals and 11 total medals across all three divisions. Japan sent 13 wrestlers to Paris, and 11 of them medaled.
After waiting out the passivity clock and trailing 1-0 against Kagami, she quickly scored a push-out point to be tied after the first period. In the second, Kagami got a takedown near the edge of the mat to take a 3-1 lead over Blades with 1:30 to go. She then held on from there to take gold over the American.
Blades has not even worn the Hawkeye singlet yet, having joined the program in July, but she already becomes the program’s first Olympic medalist. The Hawkeye women won a national championship in their inaugural season this past spring.
Head coach Clarissa Chun was a 2012 bronze medalist for Team USA and assistant coach Tonya Verbeek was a two-time Olympic silver medalist and one-time bronze medalist for Canada from 2004-2012.
In total for the Hawkeye wrestling program’s, men or women, Blades is the third silver medalist all-time, following up Spencer Lee’s silver just two days prior. It’s also the first time since 2000 that two Hawkeye wrestlers have won medals in the same cycle. Terry Brands and Lincoln Mcllravy did so in Australia in 2000 with a pair of bronze medals.
The Iowa wrestling programs now have 12 Olympic medalists all-time.
Eli McKown covers high school sports and wrestling for the Des Moines Register. Contact him at Emckown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EMcKown23.
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=66b8b73c0cdc49cf88748f926c29fd24&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.desmoinesregister.com%2Fstory%2Fsports%2Fcollege%2Fiowa%2Fwrestling%2F2024%2F08%2F11%2Fkennedy-blades-olympic-silver-in-paris-iowa-womens-wrestling%2F74757266007%2F&c=5133392479097659250&mkt=en-us
Author :
Publish date : 2024-08-11 01:21:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.