20-year-old American wrestler Amit Elor wins gold after dominant showing at Paris Olympics

PARIS — The Olympic reign of Amit Elor has officially begun.

Elor, coached by former UFC fighter and Olympic silver medalist Sara McMann, won the first gold medal of her promising career Tuesday at the 2024 Paris Olympics, crushing her latest opponent in the 68-kilogram weight class − Meerim Zhumanazarova of Kyrgyzstan − just like she has crushed almost everyone else who has stepped onto the mat with her over the past four-plus years.

Elor’s 3-0 victory in the gold-medal match at Champ-de-Mars Arena gives her 41 consecutive victories at the international level, across age divisions, dating back to 2019. It also makes Elor, 20, the youngest Olympic gold medalist in the history of U.S. wrestling and just the third American woman to take gold, joining two of her idols: Helen Maroulis and Tamyra Mensah-Stock.

“She’s obviously a generational talent. We don’t come around these athletes very often,” U.S. women’s wrestling program coach Terry Steiner said in an interview last month.

“There’s a lot of kids with talent, but the missing link is they just don’t believe that they should be there yet. I just think she brings the total package. She’s special, for sure.”

Elor usually competes at 72 kilograms but had to drop down to a lower weight class at the Olympics, where women’s wrestling has six weight classes instead of the normal 10. The switch forced her to both lose about 10 pounds, which she has described as a significant challenge in the leadup to Paris.

But nearly the weight nor the Olympic stage ended up making a difference for Elor, who cruised through the bracket with barely a hiccup.

In her first two matches, against reigning world champion Buse Tosun of Turkey and Wiktoria Choluj, she won by a cumulative margin of 18-2. In the process, she scored as many points in two matches as opponents had scored on her dating back to her most recent loss in 2019 − an illustration of just how indomitable she has been.

Altogether, Elor has won eight world championships in three different age divisions − including senior, under-23 and under-20 titles in each of the past two years.

“She feels almost unreal to us, you know?” Elor’s mother, Elana, said earlier this summer. “She’s amazing.”

Elana Elor immigrated to the United States from Israel in the 1980s with Amit’s late father, Yair, who died unexpectedly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Elana remembers trying to talk her youngest daughter out of wrestling, a violent sport where she would have to compete against boys, and direct her to something else − dancing, cheerleading, tennis, swimming, anything. It didn’t work. Amit took up the sport when she was 4 1/2 years old and never looked back.

“It doesn’t feel almost real, because you just go from one thing to another,” Elana Elor said earlier this summer. “And yesterday she was 4 years old, like ‘I want to wrestle’ and I’m doing everything I can to convince her not to because it’s a boys’ sport.”

Amit Elor said she wrestled exclusively against boys until she was 10 years old. She often felt isolated or unwanted in the gym alongside boys because, quite frankly, she beat up on them − prompting some to avoid wrestling her.

The Walnut Creek, California native said Monday that she also had to deal with “very tough” coaches who prompted her to question her ability on the mat.

“I’ve always believed that I was not good at wrestling, over the years,” Elor said. “Even after my accomplishments, I was always very negative with myself. So it’s taken a lot of healing and a lot of support for me to start to believe in myself and my abilities and to think of myself as a good wrestler.”

And these days, “good wrestler” doesn’t even come close to describing her. Clarissa Chun, who won Olympic bronze in 2008 and is now the head coach of Iowa’s women’s wrestling program, has described her as a “young GOAT” who, barring injury, seems destined for the Hall of Fame.

Since suffering a close loss the under-17 world championships in 2019, Elor had outscored her opponents 350-18 entering Tuesday.

And yet, Elor spoke Monday as someone who was just happy to be there.

“I was just staring at that crowd of people cheering for me, and I was like ‘I can’t believe this is real, I can’t believe life is real,’ ” Elor said after her semifinal win. “Because that little girl that started wrestling at 4 years old is still inside of me. And she’s just looking out, like, what is happening right now?”