Sport Management master's student Myles Amine not only walked away from this past summer's Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan with a lifetime full of memories, but also a bronze medal.

Amine, a dual citizen of the United States and San Marino, felt great pride representing his family’s heritage during the Olympics. San Marino is a small, mountainous microstate surrounded by north-central Italy. It has a population of about 34,000 and is one of the oldest republics in the world.

Amine wrestled in the men’s freestyle at 86 kilograms and went 3-1 during the week, defeating India’s Deepak Punia at 3-2 to win the bronze medal. Amine said the match went by in a blur and that he doesn’t remember the last 30 seconds. He was trailing 2-1 with 10 seconds left before executing a single-leg shot to win. However, his opponent challenged the result.

“There was some uneasiness going through my head. I was holding my breath until they denied the challenge, and about a minute went by before they reached a decision,” Amine said. “And then they announced they denied it, and my hands just went up like, ‘wow, it happened!’”

With the victory, Amine became San Marino’s first-ever Olympic wrestling medalist and University of Michigan’s second-ever Olympic wrestling medalist, but the first to do so in men’s freestyle.

Wrestling at the Olympics wasn’t the only highlight for Amine. A few weeks before the Olympics, he was on a Zoom call with San Marino’s Olympic Committee when they announced he would be the country’s flag bearer during the Opening Ceremonies.

“It was a wild moment where everything paused. I sat there and thought about all the Olympic Ceremonies I watched over the years. I had to pinch myself to think about the fact I was going to be one of those people I always looked up to and watched on TV,” he said.

Amine added that even though the ceremonies consisted of a lot of standing around, it was all worth it. He had to wait outside in a full suit in the Tokyo heat for three hours before proceeding. “I know my family, my whole community, and even people in the most remote places in the world were seeing me at that moment. I just smiled and kept walking because I didn’t want to get too nervous. Being in that parade with the best athletes in the world was something I’ll hold close to me for the rest of my life,” Amine said.

Amine, who received his undergraduate degree in business from Michigan Ross, has always been interested in combining his passion for sports with business. His goal, after earning his Sport Management master’s degree and wrestling professionally, is to work in the athlete endorsement field.

While he has only done graduate coursework virtually, Amine is impressed by Sport Management’s teaching style and real-world examples.

“One of the many things Sport Management does well is allowing us to make tangible changes to companies where we are giving presentations that can be implemented,” he said. “A lot of school is just learning through experimentation, but there are not any changes being made; however, this progressive style of teaching where companies are working with students and receiving implementable suggestions is something I thought was so unique.”