BEIJING • Randi Miller had 40 seconds, plenty of time to win an Olympic medal that will define her wrestling career.

The Olympic Training Center resident scored a late takedown Sunday to upset Canadian Martine Dugrenier in the bronze-medal match of the 138.75-pound women’s freestyle division at the Beijing Games.

Miller, 24, won a 1-0, 1-2, 1-1 decision over Dugrenier, a three-time world silver medalist, after she pinned Egyptian Haiat Farac, beat Ukrainian Yuliya Ostapchuk, lost to 2004 Olympic gold medalist Kaori Icho of Japan and pinned Azerbaijan’s Olesya Zamula.

“It means a lot,” said Miller, who shared bronze with Kazakhstan’s Yelena Shalygina. Icho claimed gold and Russian Alena Kartashova took silver.

In green shoes with white laces on her right foot and pink laces on her left foot, Miller frustrated Dugrenier by maintaining a low stance, working her to the edges of the mat and minimizing the damage when she got thrown down.

Her only point of the first period came on a push-out with 1 minute, 29 seconds left. She escaped two of Dugrenier’s leg attacks in the final 28 seconds before holding her in a headlock the last five seconds.

Another push-out gave Miller a 1-0 lead early in the second, then Dugrenier drew even with a takedown off a leg grab. Dugrenier scored the deciding point in similar fashion, turning a leg grab into a takedown with 64 seconds remaining.

In the third, Dugrenier went ahead 1-0 on a double-leg takedown at the 1:12 mark. After a reset with 40 seconds left, Miller couldn’t execute a headlock, so she shot for Dugrenier’s legs with seven seconds, generating just enough for the winning point.

“I had time to try something,” said Miller, whose previous biggest win was at the 2006 Pan American Championships. “I was not looking for that. I was looking for the front head, but I was running out of time.”

USA Wrestling national women’s coach Terry Steiner called the victory “a typical Randi match. That’s Randi’s wrestling right there – getting in people’s faces and staying in there and not letting them breathe. It was almost a perfect match.”

“You’re going to have to wrestle her the entire match,” he added. “She keeps that kind of a pace. If you’re not used to that kind of a pace, it’s hard to wrestle that kind of a pace. I knew that she would wear her down.”

Miller maintains the dramatic finish wasn’t extraordinary.

“There’s no quitting,” Miller said. “She thought she had it won and gave up for a second, let it go for a second. And I capitalized.”

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