Hildebrandt & Winchester Both Fall in Morning Session, Hildebrandt Will Wrestle For Bronze
Sarah Hildebrandt, pictured here in 2019, will wrestle for bronze in the morning. Photo courtesy of Tony Rotundo / WrestlersAreWarriors.com
by Derek Levendusky
Twitter: @AWWderek
Team USA’s Sarah Hildebrandt and Winchester both took hard losses in this morning’s round of the Olympics, with Hildebrandt falling in the final seconds and Winchester losing by fall in the bronze match.
After storming her way to the semis, U.S. 50 kg rep Sarah Hildebrandt lost in heartbreaking fashion in the semis of the Olympic Games. Facing China’s Sun Yanan, who placed 5that Worlds in 2019, Hildebrandt went ahead 7-0 after a leg attack, several leg laces, and a caution point. But her Chinese opponent scored 10 unanswered points, including a big 4-point throw in the final seconds to win the bout 10-7, sending Hildebrandt to the bronze match tomorrow morning.
The Indiana native Hildebrandt dominated her way to the semis, using the same script in her first two matches, with leg attacks and nasty leg laces to score two straight tech falls.
In the 53 kg bronze match, Jacarra Winchester was in a 0-0 battle against Belarus’ Vanesa Kaladzinskaya when her opponent threw her in a nasty headlock to end the match and take away the podium for Winchester, who won a world title in 2019.
Winchester started off her Olympic experience with a 7-4 win over Russia’s Olga Khoroshavtseva 7-4. The American had to come from behind, down 4-1 at one point, to win the match. In the quarters, she fell to China’s Pang Qianyu 6-2 and put her fate in the hands of her opponent to see if she’d be brought back into the tournament. Pang would have to make the finals for this to happen. In the early hours of Thursday morn, Pang got it done for Winchester against two-time world champion Vanesa Kaladzinskaya, scoring a takedown in the final seconds to win it 2-2 by criteria and bring Winchester back into repechage.
In her repechage match, Winchester won a position battle against the stingy Laura Herin Avila of Cuba 3-0 to advance to the bronze match.
On the men’s side, Dake earned the United States 8thmedal, followed by Gable Steveson’s dramatic last-second win to gain gold and Team USA’s 9thmedal, the most since the mid-90’s at the Olympic Games for Red, White & Blue. The mid-90’s team was in an era with ten Olympic weights compared to the six Olympic weights in the modern era. All five U.S. men have medaled at the Olympics.