Amit Elor is leaving the Paris Olympics the same way she went in: undefeated.
Elor, who is Jewish and the daughter of Israeli immigrants who moved to the United States to train as athletes, bested Kyrgyzstan’s Meerim Zhumanazarova 3-0 in the gold medal contest Tuesday evening to extend a five-year winning streak.
The win makes Elor, 20, the all-time youngest U.S. gold medalist in wrestling.
Elor, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors who moved to Israel, experienced both online antisemitism and the sudden deaths of both her father and a brother during the years when she broke into the elite ranks of U.S. women’s wrestlers. She wrestles at the 68-kilogram weight class and in October became the youngest American wrestler — male or female — ever to win a senior world title.
“It killed me at the time that he didn’t see that,” she said, referring to her father Yair Elor. “He would have been so proud.”
Elor’s ties to Israel made her a focus for Israeli Olympics-watchers, an Israeli journalist told her this week in Paris.
“That’s just insane!” she answered. “You know, I grew up wrestling in Israel almost every summer. And for me, that is a huge part of who I am as a wrestler today, and I’ve received so much support from them and they’ve always been so welcoming for me. So to know that they’ve been watching me? Oh my gosh! It’s just – it’s just incredible.”
After winning the gold medal, she said again that she was honored to have inspired Israeli viewers at a difficult time for the country. She also was photographed holding a yellow ribbon pin meant to call attention to the Israeli hostages held by Hamas since the terror group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel; athletes were not allowed to wear the pins in Paris as part of a blanket ban on political displays.
“I just can’t believe all the love I’ve received [from Israel],” Elor told reporters. “I’ve always felt that to be a huge part of my identity, but especially after the tragedies on Oct. 7. … I feel the need to represent and support more than ever right now with everything that’s been happening. I really hope that I can bring even just an ounce of joy to the people right now. And I hope that I made you all very proud tonight.”
Elor’s win adds her to a handful of other Jewish wrestlers earning 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. Henry Wittenberg won gold for the United States in 1948 despite tearing several tendons in an earlier match; he went on to help launch Israel’s Maccabiah Games and coach wrestling at Yeshiva University. An annual national Jewish high school wrestling tournament bears his name.
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