BEIJING - What you notice, as the women walk out of the arena toward the locker room, is their faces. Most of their eyes are red and bleary, some from tears, some from head butts and hand slaps.
One French wrestler stopped to talk, and the welts on her face were fresh and vivid as subway graffiti.
Ali Bernard's face was unscarred, but her eyes were wet. The New Ulm wrestler lost in the 158.5-pound (72 kilograms) bronze medal match in her first Olympics, finishing with two victories and two losses in one long day of wrestling Sunday.
She took a long time to collect herself before talking about it, joking with reporters. "Well, I tried to run away from you ... "
Then she said, "I'm disappointed. Clearly, I wanted to come home with a medal and I'm not. I guess that's about it."
Olympic wrestling -- women's or men's -- is quick and brutal. Bernard wrestled four matches on Sunday (beginning Saturday Minnesota time) at the China Agricultural University Gymnasium, and none of the matches lasted longer than four minutes, or two periods.
She pinned Nigeria's Amarachi Obiajunwa in her first match, then lost in two periods to China's Wang Jiao, the eventual goal medalist, who had the locals screaming.
After a break, Bernard entered the repechage, or wrestle-back, knowing that two victories would win her the bronze medal in her first major international senior competition.