US wrestler Amit Elor, daughter of Israeli parents, wins gold in freestyle final

US' Amit Elor celebrates with her national flag after beating Kyrgyzstan's Meerim Zhumanazarova in their women's freestyle wrestling final match during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, on August 6, 2024. (Luis Robayo/AFP)
US' Amit Elor celebrates with her national flag after beating Kyrgyzstan's Meerim Zhumanazarova in their women's freestyle wrestling final match during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, on August 6, 2024. (Luis Robayo/AFP)

Amit Elor of the United States, the daughter of Israeli parents, wins the gold medal in the women’s 68-kilogram freestyle wrestling final.

Elor, whose parents moved to the United States to train as athletes, defeats 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 US gold medalist in wrestling.

It also means that she joins a handful of other Jewish wrestlers to win 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 US national Jewish high school wrestling tournament bears his name.

Related: Facing family tragedy, online antisemitism, US wrestler Amit Elor vies for gold in Paris

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