Silver Looks Far Less Gaudy Than Gold, Tonya Verbeek

It was the perfect Hollywood story.  Verbeek continually has come close to gold, but always falling just short at the World Championships and Olympics.  She is ready to retire, but ends her career with one of her best runs.  Now, she is matched up in the finals against the greatest 55kg female wrestler in the world (and maybe all time) in Japan's Saori Yoshida.  But to make it a perfect Hollywood, then you need that pesky happy ending.

Unfortunately, Yoshida showed why she is the best in the world, and became a three time Olympic champion.  She did it in dominant fashion.  But Verbeek had a great Olympics, and walks away with a well-earned silver.  Sure, it hurts to get a medal after a loss, but there isn't much shame being known as the second best in the world.  Verbeek gets to retire knowing she whipped a lot of butts, and made her country proud.  To be honest, she was a major underdog in this match, and that was proven by just watching it.

Yoshida won the first round with a rhino like charge that almost knocked Verbeek back to Canada.  Verbeek's best offense seemed to be palming Yoshida's head, which earns zero points.  The second round saw Yoshida do a little MMA by almost ankle locking Verbeek when dragging her out of bounds.  Verbeek coaches disagreed with my assessment by throwing a brick on the mat.  But much like an all siding house, the brick had nothing to do with the final result.  The protest did nothing, and Verbeek lost without getting a point.

We've now got 16 medals.  This is better than the Beijing Olympics.  A rather fine performance in the Olympics where we don't get to strap on ice skates.  Yes, another gold would be nice, but really, silver just goes with so many more things in the house.

Our athletes are really thinking about how to properly accessorize their homes, and gold just can be too gaudy.