Slay Finally Gets Golden Moment

Freestyle wrestler Brandon Slay’s emotional roller coaster was headed upward again today, when he was scheduled to get the gold medal he thought he should have won in Sydney in the 167.5-pound weight class.

After brooding over his loss to Germany’s Alexander Leipold in the final and then feeling vindicated when Leipold failed a drug test, Slay had to wait while Leipold considered legal action and withheld the medal. Leipold finally returned it to the International Olympic Committee last week.

And although Slay didn’t get his moment of glory on the world stage during the Games, the native of Amarillo, Texas, said Tuesday he wouldn’t trade any step of his long, emotional journey.

“This is a great substitute,” he said of the ceremony at New York’s Rockefeller Center, arranged by the IOC, U.S. Olympic Committee, and USA Wrestling. “That’s because if this hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have learned all these lessons. I know it’s the journey that matters, giving full effort, not whether you win silver or gold.”

Slay, Moon Eui-jae of South Korea and Adem Bereket of Turkey will receive new medals. The gold given to Leipold was damaged, as was Slay’s silver, but Slay made no apologies for the dings and nicks in his medal.

“I started to refer to it as the people’s medal. I put it around the necks of thousands and thousands of kids,” he said. “I thought the benefits of allowing them to touch it was worth the cost of a few dents.”