Walnut Creek holds event to welcome home wrestling gold medalist Amit Elor
After the Paris Olympics, many athletes returned to their hometowns to a hero's welcome. And on Saturday afternoon, Walnut Creek welcomed home Amit Elor who captured the gold medal in women's wrestling in such a dominant style, and who some are saying, at age 20, may already be the greatest female wrestler ever.
Just as she often does to her opponents, Elor took the waiting crowd at Civic Park by surprise as she snuck up behind them carrying in the Olympic flag.
"It's just, I have to pinch myself to believe that I'm here. I'm coming here to celebrate winning an Olympic gold medal and representing my hometown," she said. "It's surreal."
Elor won the gold medal in Paris, becoming the youngest American wrestler, man or woman, to do so. And she was so dominant that no one even scored a point against her in her final three matches.
That sounded familiar to her high school assistant coach, Tom Joseph, who never saw a point scored against her even though she often had to wrestle male opponents.
"I personally have not seen her get scored on," he said. "I had the best seat in the house and I've never seen her be scored on. And then to see her in the Olympics and to be that dominant was really remarkable."
Sitting in the crowd, Piper Lalli also wrestled in high school and said Amit's dominance in the final match was obvious to her. She said it was clear from the start that she was in control.
"It was so exciting to see and know how she wrestles, the specifics and what to look for," she said. "It was so cool to just know ten seconds in that she was going to win, and she did."
Elor said she hopes she can inspire young girls to dream big, even in male dominated fields. And she recalled what intrigued her about the sport when she was little.
"This is going to sound weird, but being able to take somebody down," she said, laughing. "There's some strange satisfaction about it when I look a person and I'm, like, 'I can take that person down.' And as a little girl, it might sound kind of simple but the idea of it sounded so cool."
Her victory in the Olympics has set her up as the person to beat in Los Angeles in 2028, and she doesn't hesitate to say that's her next goal. Perhaps it's just the chance to once again stand on that podium, and see her nation's flag raised.
"The second you hear that anthem, it's just impossible — OK, see I'm getting goosebumps. It's impossible to think about it or remember it without getting chills, without feeling emotional," she said.
Considering how young she is, it's hard to imagine how far she could go. But David Miller, her strength and conditioning coach, doesn't stop at calling her the greatest female wrestler.
"I'll take that up a notch," he said. "When her career is done, she'll be in the discussion as the greatest female athlete in any sport. How about that one?"
That may sound like hype, but who's going to argue with it? Especially when you know she could take you down if she wanted to.