McMann grapples with loss

ATHENS -- Long after the match that earned her a silver medal in the first woman's wrestling tournament in Olympic history, Sara McMann's words were poignantly brief.

"I did everything I could do and it wasn't good enough," she said, the words bringing a new flood of tears down her cheeks. "There is nothing more painful in the world."

Leading her opponent, Kaori Icho, 2-0, halfway through the 63-kilogram gold medal match, McMann gave up points in three successive takedowns to lose the match, 3-2, as a large contingent of Japanese fans roared.

At 2-2 late in the bout, McMann repeatedly tried to fight through Icho's hands and shoot for her legs. But every attempt was frustrated, and at one point, Icho was about to get under McMann and reverse the position to score another clean takedown with seconds left. The earlier 2 points were also won on takedowns.

"I was just trying to fight through to her legs and just couldn't get there," said McMann, a 2003 world silver medalist behind the woman who beat her last night.

The bronze medal went to Lise Legrand of France, who beat Greece's Stravroula Zygouri.

"I did not work on technical advice before the match, it was total competitiveness and moral support," Icho said. But one teammate who gave her help was her sister, Chiharu, who had just won the silver medal in the 48-kilogram class.

Also depressed at missing the gold, Chiharu told her sister: "Have courage and attack."

Chiharu lost the gold to Irini Merleni from the Ukraine in a match that ended up tied and was decided on a judgment call of passivity on Chiharu's part.

"I was fighting for gold," said Chiharu. "I got the silver medal because I had no courage."

But the emotions of the sport came in two flavors. If the silver medalists were depressed at the outcome, when the referee raised Merleni's hand as the gold medal winner, the 4-foot-10-inch 100-pounder shrieked, threw her hands up, then jumped into the referee's arms and wrapped her legs around him.

"I was very emotional," Merlini explained.

The bronze medalist in the 48-kilogram class, Patricia Miranda of the US, said she is proud to be an Olympic medalist, and will cherish the experience as she leaves Athens to attend her first year of law school at Yale. Though people once thought she was weird for wrestling in high school, the 5-foot 105-pounder thinks all Olympic sports -- boxing included -- should include a female version.

Making inroads into wrestling has meant that most participants have wrestled on male-dominated teams. But the first appearance of the sport in these Games should, said Miranda, help the female version develop. "I hope when young girls see us winning Olympic medals that they'll be encouraged to do what we did," she said. "And if our exposure helps them, they'll have some models out there. We didn't."

Miranda said the four-woman team that came to Athens expected to medal, and that the expectations were very high for her and McMann to take the gold. So there is a bitterwsweet aftertaste to the day.

"The fact that two of our people didn't advance on a team of four is painful. We're very closely knit," said the Stanford graduate, who deferred law school for the two-year preparation for the Games. "But it isn't necessarily tied to success. I think Tela [O'Donnell] wrestled proud and so did Tocarra [Montgomery]. We have some things to be proud of about our team."

Much later, McMann said she had had time to reflect on her entire Olympic experience, and said she can take some satisfaction in being a medalist. But she was quick to point out that, "There's a difference between a silver medal in wrestling and other sports. You just get so fixed on the gold that everything else equates with loss. But I know I'm an Olympic medalist."

As a child, McMann was encouraged to wrestle, and was coached by an older brother, Jason, who was murdered five years ago. In part, she said, her pain is the memory of her brother.

"That was a long time ago, but still," she said, "I can take comfort in knowing that my brother would have been proud of me tonight no matter what the outcome was."