She is also the first female in any sport to win individual-event gold at four Olympics.
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Ever since women’s divisions were added to the Olympic wrestling program in 2004, she has earned gold at every Games.
The 32-year-old Icho, who suffered her first defeat in 13 years in January when she lost at a meet in Russian Federation, looked to be heading to a shock silver medal when Zholobova took a narrow lead into the final few seconds.
Earlier in the day, Icho saw off Marwa Amri of Tunisia in her first match, booked her ticket to the semifinals when she came from behind to beat Elif Jale Yesilirmak of Turkey and cruised past Yuliya Ratkevich of Azerbaijan for a place in the final. This recap looks back at the first day of freestyle wrestling that featured a relative newcomer to the Olympic scene for Team USA and another woman attempting to make Olympic wrestling history.
After the match, the Japanese wrestler spoke of the support she continues to draw from her mother, who passed away previous year.
“My opponent came in for a tackle (at the end) so I thought that was my last chance to score”, she said.
She had been taking on Mariya Stadnik, who served a one-year doping ban in 2006, with the Azeri having led the contest 2-1 to eventually fall to a 3-2 loss. “I didn’t aim at counterattacking at all, it was just natural”.
Late drama and Japanese success proved to be the themes of the evening, with Eri Tosaka achieving a take down with three seconds left of the under 49kg contest to win gold.
Until that most timely of takedowns, completing a 3-2 win, it appeared as if she was going to suffer only her second defeat in 13 years. And Sun Yanan of China beat her opponent, Zhuldyz Eshimova-Turtbayeva of Kazakhstan, 4-0. This is a huge win for Augello as Blaszka is the bronze medalist from the 2015 World Championships.
“I had hope at least that I could win a medal, that’s why I attacked”, Malik said. “My mum isn’t here and there are a lot of other things, but I think I won this medal through desire”. “I was very confident I would win”.
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Her teammate Saori Yoshida has been just as dominant and can match Icho’s feat of four gold medals when she competes in the women’s 53kg tournament on Thursday.
