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Random Wrestling and Judo Thoughts for Wednesday

1 Comment 13 August 2008

As an ex-wrestler and somebody who did Judo for a couple of months(was too expensive to keep up with it), I have a great deal of respect for people who do these two grappling sports. They are not instant gratification sports. For a long, long time, there were no big paydays for these athletes. The growing popularity of mixed martial arts has shown that people with grappling skills have another avenue to pursue once they are done with Judo or wrestling.

Today’s results in Judo and Wrestling at the Olympics has given me a few thoughts to consider:

* Good to see France FINALLY won it’s first gold medal. Oddly enough, it was in Greco Roman Wrestling. I liked it even better that a French wrestler named Steeve (Like my name, just one extra “E”) Guenot won it. This was France’s first wrestling Gold Medal in 84 years. The Guenot domicile will expect a second Olympic medal, this one Bronze, won by Steeve’s brother Christophe.
* Minnesota High Schooler Jake Dietchler lost his two matches at the 74 kg class-but he lost to wrestlers from Krygyzstan and Ukraine who ended up winning Silver and Bronze medals. For a high school aged wrestler to have qualified in Greco Roman wrestling was an amazing feet. This young man can come back from China with his head held high.
*Ronda Rousey became the first American female Judoka to win a medal-a Bronze, in the 70kg class. A few people had felt that this young woman might be the first American Judoka to win a gold medal after she won a silver medal last year. She lost her third match to Dutch Judoka Edith Bosch, and had to get over her anguish about losing and come back to win 4 more matches to win a well-earned Bronze medal.
* Georgia has had a really rough last week after getting invaded by Russia with the loss of a couple of thousand souls. Georgian wrestler Manuchar Kvirkelia and Judoka Irakli Tsirekidze won Georgia’s first Gold Medals of these Olympics today to at least give a little bit of good news to their compatriots back home. Kvirkelia was able to defeat a Russian judo player on the way to his Gold Medal.

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When Winning a Bronze Medal is Amazing

1 Comment 13 August 2008

In watching the Olympics, it can be very easy to get caught up in the media hype when a favored team or athlete doesn’t win the Gold Medal. French Athletes are painfully aware of this, a few of their highly favored swimmers, a weightlifter and a Kayaker ended up bringing Silver, instead of gold back to land of Voltaire and Sartre.

Today on Tuesday, their were some very suprising winners of Bronze Medals, the US men’s gymnastics team, and a Kayaker representing the west African country of Togo, Benjamin Boukbeti.

In the case of the US Male gymnasts, a few months ago, there was some talk of going head to head with their formidable hosts, the Chinese men. Injuries to stars Paul and Morgan Hamm were thought to be too much for the young and mostly untried Americans to overcome to even make the final round. Not only did the two reservists participate, but they put in a gritty, gutsy performance to help the Americans win the team Bronze. Quite an accomplishment in the face of adversity.

In the case of Benjamin Boukpeti, a man born in France of a French mother and a Togolese father, he had initially been in the French system, but a shoulder injury made members of the French Kayak Federation wonder if he would ever become a top level kayaker. He ended up going to the 2004 and these Olympics representing the country of his father. The man who today calls Toulouse home made a clean run in his last shot to bring a Bronze medal to Togo-it’s first ever Olympic medal of any kind.

This is the kind of stuff that makes the Olympics such a compelling thing to watch and follow. The US Bronze might get lost in the shuffle of the other medals that American athletes will probably win-but for Benjamin Boukpeti, it’s a safe bet that somebody is planning a BIG party for him in Lome`, the Togolese capital of this small west African country of about 5 million souls.


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