McMann wrestles a spot in history

By BRYCE MILLER

Gannett News Service

ATHENS, Greece - The body language, facial expressions and halting answers seemed to indicate an Olympic dream ended, even if the results sheet indicated otherwise.

Sara McMann is an Olympic women's wrestling semifinalist - but not necessarily a happy one.

McMann split two matches in her three-woman, round-robin pool at Ano Liossia Olympic Hall on Sunday at 138.75 pounds, including her first career loss to Canada's Viola Yanik, but survived on a point system.

``I'm very lucky it didn't cost me,'' McMann said.

She advanced largely due to an opening-match pin against former world champion Lili Meng of China in 4 minutes, 26 seconds before the 5-2 setback to Yanik.

Pins are worth four classification points, the tools used to determine pool winners.

McMann ended up with five classification points from the two matches - the other point was for scoring at least one point in the loss - while Yanik finished with four. McMann estimated she had beaten Yanik 10 times, including a pin at the June Titan Games.

``If I'm going to have this courageous-fighting-back (thing), well OK,'' said McMann, who attended McDowell High School in Marion, N.C. ``That's the situation I have to deal with now. Would I have wanted it going through with all tech falls and pins - well, hell yeah.''

McMann, a 2003 world silver medalist from Takoma Park, Md., will meet Greece's Stavroula Zygouri on Sunday. Zygouri finished sixth at the world championships a year ago.

Going into the Yanik match, McMann knew the only way she would not advance would be by getting pinned.

``That's the unfortunate thing for me, that I did know,'' she said. ``As you can see, I wrestled like that.''

McMann's day started as a history-making one, as she recorded the first American women's wrestling victory and fall in the same match.

``When I look back on it, even probably in three days, when I look back on it in a year, 10 years and I tell my kids about it,'' McMann said, ``I'll be like, `Yeah, I was one of the first females to wrestle for the United States.' ''