It was a golden harvest for University of Iowa wrestlers at the 23rd Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles this summer. UI grapplers claimed three gold and one silver medals, and leading the Americans on to their team total of seven firsts and two seconds was UI head wrestling coach Dan Gable.

The UI gold rush was engineered by Randy Lewis at 136.5 pounds; Ed Banach at 198 pounds; and his twin brother Lou at 220 pounds. Barry Davis, who will westle for Iowa next year, garnered a silver medal at 125.5 pounds.

Ed Banach, 83BSG, a three-time NCAA champion for Iowa, outscored Japanese wrestler Akira Ohta to win by a 12-point margin—an automatic judgment of technical superiority. His brother Lou, also a 1983 BGS Iowa graduate, manhandled his Syrian foe, Joseph Atiyeh, by pinning him in just over one minute in the title bout. A partisan crowd in the Anaheim Convention Center also watched former UI wrestler Randy Lewis overrun his opponent, Kosei Akaishi of Japan, 24-11, for the gold. In a showdown for the title at 125.5 pounds, native Cedar Rapidian and UI senior Barry Davis was edged out by Japanese grappler Hideaki Tomiyami, 8-3.

Randy Lewis

. . . rollled his way to the top in five matches, outscoring his opponents by a combined score of 76-16. In the final bout, Lewis took an early 3-0 lead with a counter takedown, and with 1:41 left in the match executed a throw to make the score 20-11. Two consecutive tilts in the waning seconds of the match put him over the twelve-point edge that automatically ends an Olympic freestyle wrestling contest. Lewis is taking a nine-month break from wrestling, though he plans to stay in condition and then assess his career.

Ed Banach

Just four minutes after his title bout began, Ed Banach polished off the gold by scoring a takedown to put him over the top, 15-3. Banach had fallen behind in the opening seconds of the bout with an underarm spin from Japan's Ohta, but the Iowa wrestler quickly gained control. In his quest for the gold, Banach scored three technical wins and one pin.

Lou Banach

Only a day later, Banach's twin brother Lou clinched the gold himself. Banach overwhelmed his opponenets, pinning four of his five foes and surrendering just a single point en route to his title. Even J Robinson, former assistant Iowa wrestling coach and one of Gable's aides in the Olympics, was surprised at how easily Banach pinned Turkey's Amroise Sarr in the preliminaries.

"You ride a horse a long time in life," Banach said after grabbing the gold. "My horse is my body. It's not 100 per cent any more. I wrestled heavyweight at Iowa and just got banged up. Now I can retire being a champ."

A Disappointing Second

One of the disappointments for the U.S. team and Hawkeye grappler watchers was the final-round loss of Barry Davis. Davis was outscored in a tight contest by three-time world champion Tomiyama, partly with the aid of a stalling call in the first period to break a 1-1 stalemeate. Tomiyama, who is retring from active wrestling, hopes to come to the University of Iowa to study coach Dan Gable's techniques.

"Someow the Japanese team loses sometimes in the last minute under pressure," Tomiyama said. "As you have seen, the U.S. wins at the last minute. I want to learn that from Coach Gable." Tomiyama could wind up wrestling in practice against Davis as the UI senior guns for a third NCAA crown next year.

Coaching for Victory

When asked about the incredible successes of the American wrestling contingent in this year's Olympics, Gable said, "I don't think the foreign wrestlers are used to our style of wrestling. We just come tearing at them. They like to stand around a lot at first and get situated. We're just not giving them a chance to get going."

Gable said he learned a few new techniques at the Games but not as much as he would if the Soviets had been there. According to Gable, the Soviet-led boycott "lessened the quality in terms of competitors. But really they didn't make any difference—we were going to wrestle at the top of our potential anyway."

Attributing the U.S. team's dominance to hard work, careful planning, and commitment, Gabel noted that, "It wasn't just a six-week training camp getting ready for the Olympics—it was worked at for over a year. We did our homework. It was carefully planned out, we peaked correctly, we did strategic planning. And there was the athletes' response—they were willing to commit themselves."

Looking back over the seven gold and two silver medalists he coached, Gable said, "It's hard to pinpoint any most exciting match. I was most proud of how the athletes wrestled with intensity and capability. They put on a tremendous show for themselves and for the people." The Iowa mentor singled out flyweight Bobby Weaver as "a great example of how tenacious a person can be."