Kennedy Blades’ Olympic Debut Marred by Opponent’s Injury
Kennedy Blades experienced both victory and controversy in her Olympic debut as her opponent was stretchered out after their match.
One of the most notable yet the most controversial debut took place in a tournament of 2024 Olympics in Paris, when 20 year old Iowa Hawkeyes’ wrestling sensation Kennedy Blades got onto the international mat. Although formerly a junior world champion in freestyle women’s wrestling, when the day came to wrestle for Olympic gold Blades had experienced both a sweet taste of victory as a technical fall success over Romanian’s Catalina Axente as well as the bitterness of the on-field flight of her opponent, who was taken out of the arena on a stretcher after being aggressively slammed on her back.
While I hope that Blades will have at least one more opportunity in her career to display to her audience whether she is really worth to fear or admire as she wished, this episode illustrates that anyone can quit wrestling at any given moment, but she’ll always linger a proper role model for sports lovers, wrestlers and women. Her performances will be closely pursued by her Palatine dwelling parents and her sister Korina, a professional wrestler. Across the United States, Blades too wants to proudly present wrestling as a rewarding but not necessarily violent sport.
