Spencer Lee wins silver medal at Paris Olympics
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Team USA wrestler and Franklin Regional High School graduate Spencer Lee's quest to win a gold medal came up short on Friday.
Lee lost 4-2 to Japan's Rei Higuchi in the gold-medal match at 57 kilograms in men's wrestling freestyle at the Paris Olympics. Lee, a standout college wrestler at the University of Iowa where he won three NCAA titles, rolled through his competition at his first Olympics before falling to Higuchi.
"I'm a guy who believes more in wins and losses, it's more about effort, and I don't think I put a lot of effort in that match, so I didn't deserve to win today and that's OK," Lee told the Detroit Free Press after the match.
Lee reportedly said he wished he was more aggressive from the start of the match.
"Just do a lot more action," he told the newspaper. "Create action, force him to wrestle me. Yeah, he scored one scramble, but I think the action favors me, and I let him hang on my hand and kind of just stand there. And he won one scramble and that was it."
On Friday, many of Lee's friends and family back in Westmoreland County held a watch party for his match.
"He was incredible through high school and college," Franklin Regional wrestling coach Matt Lebe said. "It's unbelievably hard to make it to this point, but no one here is surprised that Spencer is in this position and we're just super excited."
After his match, Lee told the Detroit Free Press that he is "figuring out whether I want to keep wrestling."