U.S. Wrestler Settles for Silver in Women’s Event

Her face bruised and swollen, tears streaming down her cheeks, U.S. wrestler Sara McMann stood on the awards podium Monday and registered little joy for the historic silver medal she had just won.

“I don’t think there is anything more painful in world,” she said of finishing second. “I did everything I could. I worked as hard as I could and it just wasn’t enough.”

McMann and Japan’s Kaori Icho fought a close match in the 139-pound weight class that went to Icho, 3-2. All points were scored on takedowns.

McMann, 23, who wrestled on the men’s team at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania, had a 2-0 lead after the first three-minute period, but Icho tied the score with less than a minute left in the match. The takedown went to Icho with about 20 seconds left.

“She is my best competitor and my best rival,” Icho said of McMann. “Sometimes at competitions our eyes meet and we smile.”

This was the Olympic debut of women’s wrestling and the U.S. also took a bronze medal, at 106 pounds. Patricia Miranda, 25, a former wrestler at Stanford, outpointed Angelique Berthenet of France, 12-4.

Irini Merleni of the Ukraine took the gold by defeating Icho’s sister, Chiharu Icho, on classification points in overtime.

In the two other gold-medal matches, Saori Yoshida of Japan defeated Tonya Verbeek of Canada, 6-0, at 121 pounds, and Wang Xu of China beat Gouzel Maniourova of Russia, 7-2, at 159 pounds.

-- Chicago Tribune

CYCLING

Reed Out of Sprints

Three races, about 40 seconds of hard pedaling time, and it was over for U.S track cyclist Jennie Reed, who was eliminated from the opening rounds of the sprint competition.

She finished second in the consolation race, placing her 10th in a 12-woman field.

Australia defeated Britain for gold in the 4,000-meter team pursuit, adding the Olympic title to its three consecutive world championships in the event. Spain beat defending gold medalist Germany for bronze.

DIVING

Dumais Trails Leader

Troy Dumais, from Ventura, was in fifth place with 452.76 points after the three-meter springboard preliminaries, trailing leader Alexandre Despatie of Canada.

Despatie had 517.59 points. The top 18 advanced to today’s semifinals.

EQUESTRIAN

American in Medal Hunt

Debbie McDonald of Hailey, Idaho, moved into contention for an individual dressage medal with a fault-free round on her mare Brentina, scoring 74.840. She moved to fourth overall with a two-day average of 74.067.

Robert Dover of Lebanon, N.J., scored 74.04 on Kennedy to move from ninth to sixth with an overall score of 72.833.

The United States hasn’t won a medal in individual dressage since 1932.

SAILING

U.S. Duo Retains Lead

Americans John Lovell and Charlie Ogletree held onto their lead in the Tornado catamaran class and Paul Cayard jumped up three spots in the Star class on another bizarre afternoon on the Saronic Gulf.

While the Tornados got in their two scheduled races, the Stars got in just one before the breeze died. The boats drifted under the hot sun for about three hours before attempts to start the second race were abandoned.

Lovell, of New Orleans, and Ogletree, of Houston, steered their catamaran to consecutive ninth-place finishes to keep the lead over defending gold medalists Roman Hagra and Hans Peter Steinacher of Austria with six of 11 races sailed.

TABLE TENNIS

Ryu Surprises in Singles

Ryu Seung Min beat China’s Wang Hao in six games, becoming the first South Korean to win the men’s singles gold medal since the sport was added at the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

Ryu, ranked third in the world, won, 11-3, 9-11, 11-9, 11-9, 11-13, 11-9. Wang Liqin of China won the bronze.

VOLLEYBALL

U.S. Men Advance

The U.S. men’s team may have more motivation to beat Brazil should the teams meet again.

The Americans contended their opponent tanked a meaningless match Monday to make an easier path in the quarterfinals, but the Brazilians said they were just distracted by thoughts of their next match.

Whatever the case, the U.S. team will move on with plenty of momentum and confidence.

Reid Priddy scored 10 points to lead the Americans to a four-set victory, 25-22, 25-23, 18-25, 25-22 -- a match in which both teams played their reserves extensively.

U.S. setter Lloy Ball called Brazil’s effort embarrassing and felt it tainted the Olympic spirit.

“I hope they lose the rest of their matches,” he said.

Brazil Coach Bernardo Rezende insisted his players were worried about their next match, against Poland in Wednesday’s quarterfinals.

The Americans finished pool play at 3-2, winning a tiebreaker over Russia for third place. They advance to play Greece.

In the other quarterfinals, Russia will take on defending gold medalist Serbia and Montenegro and Italy goes up against Argentina.

WEIGHTLIFTING

Bulgarian Wins Gold

Milen Dobrev of Bulgaria lived up to his top seeding and took the gold medal in the 207-pound division.

Dobrev, 24 and the reigning world champion, made clean lifts on each of his first five tries.

He failed on his sixth and final attempt, but just laughed and kissed the weights, knowing his total of 898 pounds already had clinched first place.

Junior world champion Khadjimourad Akkaev, a 19-year-old from Russia, took silver with a total of 893 pounds. Fellow Russian Eduard Tjukin got the bronze.