Olympics: Akari Fujinami gets wrestling gold, extends winning streak to 137

PARIS (Kyodo) — Japan’s Akari Fujinami won the women’s 53-kilogram wrestling gold medal match in dominant fashion at the Paris Olympics on Thursday.

The 20-year-old Olympic debutant, a two-time world champion, defeated Ecuador’s Lucia Yamileth Yepez Guzman by technical superiority at the Champ-de-Mars Arena to extend her phenomenal winning streak to 137 bouts.

“The Olympics are the best, wrestling is the best, and I’m glad I’ve made it this far,” said Fujinami, who left no openings for Yepez Guzman in a 10-0 victory in the final.

“I have been thinking about Guzman every time I train, and she is one of the wrestlers who really motivates me, so I am grateful to her.”

Fujinami dominated the field as she has always done.

On her way to the final, she won her first two matches by technical fall and shut out China’s Pang Qianyu 10-0 in her semifinal a day earlier.

Only Mongolia’s Khulan Batkhuyag got on the scoreboard against Fujinami 8-2 before her quarterfinal technical fall loss.

Earlier, two Japanese wrestlers got within a win of gold. Three-time world champion Tsugumi Sakurai and Rio de Janeiro Olympics silver medalist Rei Higuchi advanced to the women’s and men’s freestyle 57-kg finals, respectively.

In her semifinal, Sakurai won 10-4 against American Helen Louise Maroulis, who upset three-time Olympic champion Saori Yoshida in the 53-kg gold medal match at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and also claimed bronze in Tokyo in 2021.

Sakurai turned a 2-0 deficit into a 4-2 lead late in the first period against the three-time world champion before dominating the second period to close out the match.

“I allowed her to score first but told myself that I would bounce back with my stamina,” Sakurai said.

Asked to comment on Maroulis, the 22-year-old from Kochi Prefecture said, “She’s been someone I look up to. I tried to think of myself as the challenger. This win over an Olympic champion gives me a confidence boost.”

Higuchi won his semifinal contest by technical superiority against India’s Aman Sehrawat.

In other finals, Iran’s Saeid Esmaeili Leivesi outpointed Ukraine’s Parviz Nasibov in the men’s Greco-Roman 67-kg category for gold while Bulgarian Semen Sergeevich Novikov beat Iran’s Alireza Mohmadipiani in the Greco-Roman 87-kg final.

Earlier in the day, Japan’s Hayato Ishiguro lost to Aaron Marquel Brooks of the United States in the men’s 86-kg freestyle quarterfinals.