Bay Area wrestler sets sights on Rio gold

The Olympic wrestler from Danville discovered a passion for the Greco-Roman style at the age of 9.

[...] Smith and his longtime coach, Mark Halvorson, relentlessly have pursued Olympic gold: from Azerbaijan to Iran to Russia and now, finally, Brazil.

When Smith, 29, steps into the Olympic arena in Rio, it will be one of the many international stops on a career that has been headquartered at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs for the past 11 years.

Smith watched American Matt Ghaffari win a silver medal at the Atlanta Games in 1996.Smith, then a 9-year-old, joined the Community Youth Center in Concord and began competing in Greco-Roman under Halvorson.

Greco-Roman isn’t the most popular style of wrestling — high school and college competitions emphasize freestyle or folkstyle — but it is the sport’s original form.

Greco-Roman wrestlers can use only their upper body to overpower an opponent, which means using throws to take down the foe instead of tripping or grabbing his legs.

“My goal was to be an Olympic champion, never a national or NCAA champion,” Smith said.

Smith thought it had paid off in 2012, when he competed in the Olympic trials just 4½ months after sustaining a torn ligament in his elbow.

Smith came back in three, trying to balance training at a high level and cutting weight to make his 96-kilogram weight class.

Smith returned to Colorado Springs with renewed ambition and a new game plan: move up a weight class.

In 2014, he won gold at the U.S. Open before repeating that feat in 2015 and also took bronze at the 2015 Pan American Games.