Daughter of Israeli immigrant athletes, 20, becomes youngest ever American gold medalist in wrestling, keeping a five-year winning streak alive with defeat of Kyrgyz opponentHoshiko)
JTA — Wrestler 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 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 national Jewish high school wrestling tournament bears his name.