PARIS — American wrestler Kennedy Blades collapsed to the mat and buried her head in her hands. She was overcome with emotions. Happiness was on top.
She was trying to process that her latest victory at the Paris Olympics was sending her to the gold-medal match — at her first Games, as an unseeded wrestler and at 20-years-old.
“We’re so close,” Blades said. “Just one more sleep, and then my body’s gonna be feeling really good — although it is right now. But just the rest is gonna make a huge difference. So I’m ready to just blow it through the water.”
The latest of her three victories was against Kyrgyzstan’s Aiperi Medet Kyzy with an 8-6 decision in the women’s freestyle semifinal at 76kg on Saturday night at Champ-de-Mars Arena. Blades will compete for her first Olympic medal — either gold or silver — Sunday against Japan’s Yuka Kagami.
The first three minutes against Medet Kyzy were tight with Blades having a 2-1 advantage. But Blades kept attacking, racking up an 8-2 lead before hanging on to run out the clock and earn the winning decision.
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“She’s been given the freedom to succeed and also fail, but, most importantly, grow,” her coach, Izzy Martinez said. “And she’s grown, and she’s getting better every day, and we’re just so proud of her.”
With her confident demeanor, you’d never know she wasn’t a lock to make the Team USA’s Olympic squad. To get to Paris, she had to defeat Olympic silver medalist and six-time world champion Adeline Gray.
And to get to the gold-medal match, she had to power through Romanian No. 4 seed Catalina Axente and Cuban No. 5 seed Milaimy de la Caridad Marin Potrille, before topping Medet Kyzy.
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Blades said a “huge” contributing factor for her reaching this point is embracing a “childlike mentality.” She reminds herself she’s young and unseeded, so she doesn’t need to feel the pressure. She just wants to have fun.
“Once I started putting pressure on myself … I just started kind of wrestling differently because I wrestled not to lose,” Blades said.
And while the Chicago native works with Martinez and signed with wrestling powerhouse Iowa, Blades credits Northwestern women’s lacrosse coach — Kelly Amonte Hiller, a 10-time NCAA champ, eight as a coach — with helping her readjust her mental approach.
“Once she switched my mentality to [a] childlike mentality,” Blades explained, “it was just like, ‘Go out there and have fun. You’ve done this your whole life.’”
But make no mistake: Now that a gold medal is within reach, Blades wants it. Badly.
“I don’t want to just go back home with a silver; I want gold because that was my mentality the whole time,” she said. “I’m just gonna go out there and have fun and just let it fly.
“No matter what happens, I’m still young. This is my first Olympics, so don’t even put any pressure.”