Ron Judd / Times staff columnist
Women's wrestling makes Olympic debut in style

DAVID EULITT / KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS Irini Merleni of the Ukraine leaps into the arms of referee Georgios Chamakos after being awarded the gold medal in women's 48-kilogram freestyle wrestling. Merleni defeated Chiharu Icho, right, of Japan on a tiebreaker. American Patricia Miranda won the bronze, and another American, Sara McMann, won silver in the 63-kilogram division.

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ATHENS — Leave it to the first-ever Olympic women's wrestling medalist to get right to the point, as it were.

Are there any sports here, someone asked American bronze medalist Patricia Miranda, that still can and should be performed only by men?

No, she said, then added: "Unless you can really convince me it's something beyond two arms and two legs ... something you definitely need a penis to do."

Well, there you have it.

Women's wrestling made its Olympic debut before a hopping crowd in Athens last night, proving two things beyond a reasonable doubt:

Elite women wrestlers are as agile, powerful and determined — and perhaps even more passionate — than their male Olympic counterparts.

And while there may be no crying in baseball, there is crying in women's wrestling — or at least afterward.

Lots of it. Tears of joy. Tears of agony. Tears of regret. The joy came first last night, and it was huge.

In the gold-medal match for the 48-kilogram (105-pound) class in which Miranda claimed bronze, Irini Merleni of the Ukraine fought a tough, frustrating match to a 2-2 draw after nine minutes with opponent Chiharu Icho of Japan.

When it ended, the referee grabbed both women's arms — and raised Merleni's, giving her the victory by decision.
 
For a half-second, she was stunned. Then she cut loose. Blond ponytails bobbing up and down, the Ukrainian stomped, kicked, whooped and danced furiously in a circle on the mat. She dropped to her knees and raised her arms. She got back up. She screamed.

Tears of elation streaming down her face, she turned to the referee — Georgios Chamakos of Greece, a tidy-looking chap in a blue blazer, slacks and tie, and literally leapt into his arms, wrapping herself around him with her legs locked behind his back, like a happy koala bear on a long-lost eucalyptus tree.

Chamakos stood there, stunned at his sudden squirming Ukrainian appendage, not knowing what to do, as the crowd ate it up. Finally, Merleni released, running across the mat to hug the officials, the fans, the photographers, the guy who cleans the mat, everyone within thanking distance.

Chamakos should thank his lucky stars this was a women's 105-pound match. If that had been Rulon Gardner clinging to his chest, he'd only now be coming out of emergency hernia surgery.

It wasn't, and that was part of the wonder of this night.

The first time the women grappled for medals, the U.S. walked away with a pair — Miranda's bronze and Sara McMann's silver, a consolation-prize medal in the 63-kilogram (139-pound) division after a close loss to Kaori Icho of Japan, sister of the silver medalist in the lighter class.

McMann, devastated by the loss, played the agony-of-defeat role to perfection — and perhaps one step beyond.

After blowing an initial points advantage to lose 3-2 to Icho, who had edged past her similarly at this year's world championships, McMann started weeping, and couldn't stop, for some 10 minutes, as she was awarded a silver medal she truly couldn't seem to stomach.

She wept on the way to the podium, wept atop it, wept on the way off. Ten minutes later, in a news conference, she was still weeping. They clearly were not tears of joy, or even relief.

Finally, some brave journo summoned the courage to ask her The Question: How does it feel to come so close to gold, and see it slip away?

"I don't think there's anything more painful in the world," she said through more tears.

This from the second-best woman in the world at what she does.

You wanted to shake her, tell her it was OK, that life goes on, remind her that she's done something 99.99999 percent of the people on this odd, spinning orb will never accomplish.

On the other hand, she was blissfully chipper compared to another vanquished grappler, Chiharu Icho, silver-medal sister of the wrestler who put the squeeze on McMann.

Declared the non-golden Icho of the family: "Anything less than gold is a disgrace."

Ouch.

Perhaps they should slip a counseling coupon into the jacket pocket of all silver medalists, instead of placing that olive wreath on their heads. But who are we to judge? Until you've rolled on that mat ...

"She's a pretty emotional person," U.S. coach Terry Steiner said of his wrestler. "It hurts. Why hold it back? There's nothing wrong with crying in front of the camera. She's earned that right."

That she has. And the woman is not without perspective: She made a point of separating the grief from her loss from that of a real tragedy — the murder of her brother in Pennsylvania five years ago.

"That happened a long time ago," she said, suggesting that time had helped dull the pain.

"I know my brother would be proud of me either way."

Her brother, her family, her team — and, bank on this: her country.

"Sara doesn't need to hang her head," Steiner said. "What she did was a great accomplishment. She doesn't want that silver medal right now. But that's the life of an athlete."

He's right.

For better or worse, the life of an athlete is fueled by the very thing that sent Irini Merleni leaping and left Sara McMann weeping.

It's passion.

And if women's wrestling keeps producing it the way it did on its Olympic-medal debut in Athens, we'll all be feeling it, in the heart and in the gut, for a long, long time.

Ron Judd: 206-464-8280 or at rjudd@seattletimes.com.