ACOG - News - IBM

(21 July 1996; Day 2)

WOLNY Turns Wild-Card Selection into Gold Medal

Perhaps the thought of Poland's Ryszard WOLNY becoming an Olympic champion was little more than a pipe dream when he walked into the Georgia World Congress Center Saturday morning to begin the Greco-Roman wrestling competition at 68kg.

After all, WOLNY had placed in a world-level tournament only once before in his career, and that was six years ago. And after finishing third in this year's European Championships, WOLNY wasn't assured of a trip to the Olympic Games.

But Federation Internationale de Lutte Amateur (FILA), wrestling's international governing body, issued WOLNY a wild-card invitation to compete. Then he discovered that his first-round opponent would be the defending Olympic gold medalist, Attila REPKA of Hungary, who had won both their previous meetings.

But the Olympic Games are all about dreams.

WOLNY upset REPKA 4-3 in their opening match and seemed to gain strength every round. In the finals he was dominant, shutting out France's Ghani YOLOUZ, 7-0. No longer was he just another "rabbit" in the draw whose only previous claim to fame was a bronze medal at the 1990 World Championships.

"It was a small shock to me, finding out I'd wrestle him,'' WOLNY said. "But I was ready. Before the match I prayed that God would give me the strength to do my best. I felt all along that earning the wild card was a great fortune. I wanted to prove that the wild card was given to an established competitor, one who deserved it."

WOLNY and teammate Andrjez WRONSKI, the gold medalist at 100kg, made Poland the only nation with more than one gold medalist in Group A, the first five weight classes of the 10-weight overall competition.

"It's unbelievable how hard we've worked as a team," WOLNY said. "We've been running, swimming, and skiing to work out and training really hard to perfect the techniques we've been practicing."

This is an official publication of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games Sports Publications Department. Written by Robert Sherrill


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More tickets were sold to the competitions of the 1996 Games than to any other Olympic Games or sports event in history. The 8.6 million ticket sales figures topped sales to the Los Angeles and Barcelona Games combined.