CHIBA, Japan — The Cliff Keen Wrestling Club’s Myles Amine, a current University of Michigan graduate student, scored the winning takedown with just 10 seconds remaining to rally past India’s Deepak Punia, 4-2, and capture Olympic bronze at 86kg/189 pounds on Thursday (Aug. 5) at Makuhari Messe Hall. Amine is the second Olympic medalist in U-M program history and the first in freestyle wrestling.
Trailing 2-1 late in the second period after a Punia takedown in the first, Amine shot in on a single leg with 30 seconds to go, brought high then finished on the mat, spinning behind to secure the go-ahead takedown and close out the match on top. Punia’s corner challenged but lost to tack on another point for Amine at match’s end.
Punia was the 2019 world silver medalist at 86kg — the same event where Amine placed fifth to also qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. The Indian is the fifth different world medalist that Amine has defeated over the last two years. Amine, who wrestles for San Marino internationally, has also claimed three European medals since 2019.
Amine went 3-1 in the Olympic competition, with his lone loss coming in the quarterfinals to USA’s David Taylor, who himself used a late takedown to defeat Iran’s Hassan Yazdani, 4-3, in the gold-medal match. Taylor pulled Amine back into repechage when he made the final; Amine earned a gritty 2-0 decision over Belarus’ Ali Shabanau, a four-time world medalist, on two passivity points to advance to the medal round.
He is the second Olympic medalist in Michigan wrestling history, joining Steve Fraser, who captured the 90kg/198-pound Greco gold medalist in 1984. Amine and fellow U-M graduate student Stevan Micic (57kg freestyle, Serbia) were the seventh and eighth Olympians in program history. The Cliff Keen WC also sent Jake Herbert to the 2012 London Games at 84kg freestyle.
Amine, who served as one of two San Marino flag bearers during the Olympic Opening Ceremony, is also the country’s first male Olympic medalist. Shooter Alessandra Perilli captured Olympic bronze in women’s trap and silver in mixed trap team earlier in the Tokyo Games. With a population of 33,600, San Marino is the smallest country to have won an Olympic medal — and now has three in Tokyo.
Micic dropped his opening-round bout to Japan’s Yuki Takahashi, 7-0, at 57kg on Wednesday (Aug. 4). Micic gave up a passivity point and a stepout in the first period to trail 2-0 at the break but could not respond when Takahashi, the 2017 world champion, pulled away with a pair of takedowns in the second. He was eliminated from the competition when the Japanese wrestler dropped his quarterfinal bout, 4-4, on criteria.
