Featherweight, Freestyle (≤57 kg), Men

The 57 kg weight class had six returning World champions in it along with a number of former silver and bronze medalists. Georgia’s superstar Vladimer Khinchegashvili entered the 2016 Olympic Games as not only the defending World champion, but silver medalist from the 2012 London Olympics and 2014 Worlds, and four-times European Championship medalist (two of which are gold). The 25-year-old had not lost a match in this class since the 2014 World Championships, and was one of the best wrestlers pound-for-pound. Outside of him, the other favourite had to be Hassan Rahimi of Iran who, in the last three seasons, has won gold (2013), silver (2015) and bronzes (2011, 2014) at the World Championships. Two other men in the field had medalled at higher weights at the World Championships and came down a class for the Olympics in Rio – Yowlys Bonne of Cuba, a World bronze medalist (2014) and 2012 Olympian was world-ranked number three, while Bulgaria’s Vladimir Dubov won a World bronze in 2015.

But in the end, it was Khinchegashvili in the match for Rio gold against Japan’s Rei Higuchi who, at just 20 years of age, came out of nowhere – and en route to the final, took out the Cuban Bonne in the quarter-finals and 2013 World champion Hassan Rahimi of Iran in the semi-finals. The edge was held by Higuchi, 3-2, late in the second period, but Higuchi was then put on the shot clock with 1:13 left in the bout, failing to score, giving a point to Khinchegashvili who was ahead based on tie-breaking criteria. An unsuccessful challenge from Higuchi’s corner at the very end resulted in an extra point going to Khinchegashvili to make the final score 4-3. Higuchi came within inches from Olympic glory in his Games debut.

Azerbaijan’s Hacı Əliyev, the two-time World champion, had to drop down to 57 kg because his normal weight class (61 kg) was not on the Olympic programme and he found himself wrestling with Khinchegashvili, the reigning 57 kg world champion, in the quarter-finals. This match of two reigning World champions going head-to-head had Khinchegashvili narrowly winning the bout 5-3, but Aliyev wrestled back through the repêchage to win one of the bronze medals.

The second bronze was won by Rahimi who recovered from his loss to Higuchi to pin Bonne in the bronze medal match with about a minute left on the clock.