Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Clarissa Chun takes Bronze!

Today was the first day of the women's freestyle wrestling competitions. Wow! Much more excitement today then the previous days. Not that Greco-Roman wrestling isn't interesting but it's much harder to follow; with freestyle wrestling I actually can understand what is happening. 

Again the competitions went by weight class, so today the U.S. had two women competing, one I each weight category. Clarissa Chun won her first match and lost her second. The other U.S. athlete lost her first match. 

In wrestling the losers get the opportunity to continue competing in what is called repechage. This allows the loser of the original match to get back in to the competition, they just need the athlete beat them to win two more matches. So the U.S. athletes had a bit of time to wait in anticipation hoping that the person they lost to would win. 

For Clarissa Chun, that's what happened. Clarissa was able to get into the repechage and compete to go on for the bronze medal. A different thing with wrestling is that they give out two bronze medals. If Clarissa were to win her first match she would move on to the bronze match, which she did. She battled inane won and had a break before competing against Ukraine for the bronze medal.during the match she flipped her opponent amazingly and scored 3 points! She had fought 3 times before the medal round and went on to win the bronze! Her first Olympic medal (she had also competed in Beijing) and the first women's wrestling medal.

I had the pleasure of meeting Clarissa during my internship in Colorado. She is a wonderful person and so king and friendly. I was very glad to be able to watch her compete and very proud to say that I know her. I couldn't be happier for her! 

That's my excitement for today!





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