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Minguzzi wins 84kg G-R title
By the Associated Press
Posted Thursday, August 14, 2008 5:46 AM ET
BEIJING (AP) – Andrea Minguzzi did a backflip, hoisted his coach and hauled him to the middle of the mat, wrapped himself in the Italian flag and ran a victory lap around the arena.
A happy wrestling gold-medal winner, obviously. A can’t-quite-believe-it winner who came out of nowhere to steal away with wrestling’s most coveted prize when there was no previous hint he could do so.
Minguzzi finished 45th, 18th, 17th, 28th and 27th in his previous five world championship tournaments. That didn’t prevent him from becoming Italy’s first Olympic wrestling champion in 20 years by defeating Zoltan Fodor of Hungary in the 84-kilogram finals Thursday.
Minguzzi certainly couldn’t hide his delight, hugging and kissing the flower girls on the medal stand, biting into his gold medal and playing to the crowd, which reveled in his enthusiasm.
“To me, it is worth the world,” Minguzzi said. “I am ecstatic right now. I couldn’t be happier.”
One never could tell, except that he seemed willing to hug all 5,000 or so spectators in the China Agriculture University gymnasium if he could.
Fodor, also an unlikely finalist, was eighth in the world last year and, only three years ago, was 30th in the world juniors.
The bronze medals were won by Nazmi Avluca of Turkey and Sweden’s Ara Abrahamian, the silver medalist in Athens who dropped a disputed decision to Minguzzi in the semifinals, then dropped his medal on the mat in protest.
Fodor won the first period of the gold-medal match 1-1 on tiebreaker, but Minguzzi won the second by the same score before throwing Fodor in the third to win 4-0 and finish off the day of his life.
In order, the 26-year-old Italian policeman (*HOT*):
-Upset 2004 gold medalist Aleksey Mishin, last year’s world champion, in what may go down as one of the biggest shockers in Olympic wrestling. Mishin is a four-time European champion who was in control after winning the second period 3-0, only to lose 2-1 in the third.
-Turned a disputed point into a semifinals surprise – there’s that word again – against Abrahamian. Swedish coach Leo Myllar used words much stronger than disputed.
“It’s all politics, and it’s all corrupt,” he said.
In the oft-mysterious world of international wrestling, in which the rules are quirky and can be interpreted widely, sometimes it’s all in the game.
After he took the bronze – but not for long – two-time former world champion Abrahamian said, “I don’t care about this medal. I wanted gold. This will be my last match. I wanted to take gold, so I consider this Olympics a failure.”
(*read: spoiled sport*)
During the medal ceremony, Abrahamian took the bronze from around his neck and, in disgust, dropped it on the mat as he walked away.
Abrahamian had to be restrained from going after the matside officials following his loss to Minguzzi and, storming away from the mixed zone where interviews are conducted, slammed a door to the dressing rooms so hard it shook an entire wall. He weighed whether to skip the bronze medal match, only to have friends talk him into competing.
Abrahamian’s unhappiness doesn’t take away from Minguzzi’s accomplishment, which might have prevented Russia from winning its fourth Greco-Roman gold in Beijing.
Minguzzi’s golden day proved that even a relatively obscure wrestler – despite his third-place finish in this year’s European championships – can get hot and win the Olympics, especially with all matches in a weight class now wrestled in one day.
Before Minguzzi, the last Italian to win an Olympic wrestling gold was Vincenzo Maenza, who won at 48 kg in 1984 and 1988.
Maybe that proved some inspiration as Minguzzi’s father, himself a former wrestler, taught him the sport from an early age.
“It’s the only sport I’ve ever practiced,” he said.
That’s only because hugging isn’t an Olympic sport.
(*Uh. Yeah. I could post a comment here, but, you know…there’s really no point by now. I will find him and challenge him to a HUG-OFF!! ;P)
Brad Vering, last year’s world silver medalist from the United States, lost to Denis Forov of Armenia in the round of 16 and did not medal. He plans to retire.
“It doesn’t end up the way I wanted it to end up, but I’m not going to let my whole career just ride on one loss in the Olympic Games,” said Vering, a former NCAA champion at Nebraska.
Just got done shooting What’s New Now…at 7:30 PM! Now the real work begins… Thought I’d try some mobile blogging on Muni via the WordPress app, but it’s starting to sound more like a diary entry than a blog posting. The lines are blurred…
Though it may seem like I enjoy it, What’s New Now has become quite an unwelcome chore. And, thank you, but no I’m not getting paid for that acting job… :-/
Anyway… Check it out tomorrow. I had SOME fun with it, I suppose. 
http://whatsnewnow.com
Otherwise known as… Essential (FREE!) iPhone Apps for New Users
So, these are mine (in no particular order):
1.) Facebook App
Though still a little buggy (hello crazy repeating Wall!?), it still makes mobile Facebooking fun and…relatively easy…
2.) Pandora Radio
What more could you want? A free radio station that plays only music that you like! Granted, some of the songs play too often, but that’s Pandora’s fault, not the app. Or maybe it’s my own for liking too many similar things. Anyway, the app is great and the audio quality is pretty darn amazing.
3.) Shazam!
Since we’re talking about music, Shazam describes itself…because it’s like a little magical music genie in your pocket. Watching TV and like the song in a commercial? Shazam will find it. At the theatre and love the song on the end credits? Let your phone listen for 10 seconds and it will find it, direct you to the place to purchase it, or find it on YouTube for your immediate listening pleasure. It’s like magic and I <3 it.
4.) BoxOffice
And on the topic of movies (don’t you just love these segues?!), BoxOffice is a pretty sweet app. It brings up current movies playing in your area, sorted by Title, Score, or Release Date. It grabs movie scores from Rotten Tomatoes or MetaCritic. It lists theatres and showtimes near you. And it even has reviews, trailers, and ticket purchasing basically built right in. A must-have for any cinephile anybody…. Unfortunately, iTunes decided to can this one for some unknown reason! Sucks.. Looking into ‘Showtimes‘ now…
5.) Twinkle
Twinkle, I’ve found, is pretty much the bee’s knees when it comes to iPhone twittering. Twitterific just didn’t cut it for me. I didn’t like how it parsed my messages from yours. What’s the matter, Twitterrific? Can’t we all just get along? Twinkle does a good job of keeping the Twitter formatting, but in a sleek and shiny iPhone-like way (with pictures and pretty music, of course…). I also like checking randomly from time to time, who the hell else is Twittering around me. I’m sure I could meet a few cool new people that way…or at least getting a couple of dates out of it! Just kidding. I’m totally taken. ;P
I’m totally bummed that BoxOffice was taken down. That thing ruled. And I’m currently syncing my phone to check out Showtimes, but if it erases my BoxOffice app, I will be highly pissed. Check back soon to see if I post something about a flaming pile of horseshit…
…or at least four or five…
Where'd that come from?!
iSmashPhone just put out a great list of little iPhone tricks that you probably had no idea your shiny little wonder could do. Screen capture? Sa-weet! Alternate characters?! Who knew?? Domain resolution? Wha-what what?
Enjoy. And only use your newfound powers for good.
Amazing! It boggles the mind to think that mere humans could have constructed such an amazing and intricate piece of technology. Although, the thought that the world could end in milliseconds is slightly frightening. I feel for those poor Francophones living within the 27 km circle…
Stargate...meet Large Hadron Collider
Reminds me of The Matrix...
Prime real estate or future black hole?
The thing that I hate THE most about the new App Store on the iPhone is the incessant amount of updating that goes on. It seems like there are new updates EVERY single fucking day.
And that’s not even the worst part.
The worst part is is that after you’ve gone through the retarded hassle of updating all your apps…NOW THEY’RE ALL OUT OF PLACE!!! ARGHHHHHHH!!! This bugs me to no end. So much so that I’ve decided not to update any app for the time being.
Unless I find out there is some huge revelation in the next .0.0.1.4 software update that will solve the intermittent reception I get in my office or the lack of battery life if I even *think* about playing Aurora Feint, then screw you. I’ll keep my apps in the same place, thank you very much.
That is all.
I guess it’s not hard to see why I chose this name and, as such, this post will unfortunately have to end abruptly. As in now.
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