The most dominant Olympic athlete Amit Elor WON gold in Paris for US

The Olympic Games serve as a global stage for athletes to showcase their exceptional talents and skills, often leading to the emergence of dominant figures in various sports. One such athlete is Amit Elor, who recently captured gold in wrestling at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Elor's victory not only highlights her individual prowess but also represents a significant achievement for Team USA, as she further solidifies the United States' reputation in the realm of competitive wrestling.

The win makes Elor, 20, the all-time youngest US gold medalist in wrestling.

It also means that she joins a handful of other Jewish wrestlers to win gold medals on the mat. Károly Kárpáti of Hungary won gold at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin; he was later imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, where he witnessed the murder of gold medalist fencer Attila Petschauer but survived.

Now, full disclosure, I only know about Elor because of my 15-year-old son, who took up the sport last year and asked for me to take him to her wrestling clinic that was in our corner of the country. It was a wonderful experience, with Elor working with young kids on drills for approximately three hours and taking pictures afterward while answering any and all of their questions. She was, as anyone who follows her Instagram account is well aware, a delight.

Elor also recalled Monday that many of her early coaches were “very tough on me. Not a lot of positivity in the wrestling room,” she said. As a result, “I've always believed that I was not good at wrestling,” she explained. “Even after my accomplishments, I was always very negative with myself.”

The accomplishments, though, kept accumulating. The training intensified — it incorporated judo and jiu-jitsu, and now features sand workouts. High school opponents stood no chance. On the international stage, Elor lost once, at the Under-17 World Championships in 2019. "I'll get it next year," she said at the time. She has not lost a match of any kind, at any weight, anywhere, since.

Elor seemed as though she could have gone on forever talking about her journey, but soon she was whisked away from the media area. “We have a medal ceremony to go to,” she was told.

In a dimly lit corner of a makeshift tent maybe 100 yards from the arena, USA Wrestling executive director Rich Bender held his iPhone up to Elor’s face so she could check her look. She redid the ponytail holding up her strawberry blond hair, smoothed out her eyebrows and eyelashes. The welts that covered her face, a wrestler’s signature, would have to stay.

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Sarah H

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