Light-Heavyweight, Freestyle (≤69 kg), Women

The top contender was the reigning Olympic champion and 2013 World silver medalist Nataliya Vorobyova of Russia, who was also a 69 kg bronze medalist at the 2014 World Championships, and gold medal winner the following year in 2015. But this class in Rio was loaded with World and Olympic medalists, all capable of winning Olympic gold, including World champions Aline Focken of Germany (2014 at 69 kg), Alina Stadnik of Ukraine (2013 at 67kg), and Jenny Fransson of Sweden (2012 at 72 kg) who like Vorobyova, had dropped in weight. Other previous World and Olympic medalists offering a serious challenge included China’s Zhou Feng (2015 silver behind Vorobyova, winner of the 2016 Test Event in Brazil, and was ranked No. 1 entering the Olympics), Japan’s Sara Dosho (2014 silver, and bronzes in 2013 and 2015), Canada’s Dori Yeats (2012 World silver, plus 2014 Commonwealth Games and 2015 Pan American Games champion), Ochirbatyn Nasanburmaa of Mongolia (2008, 2011, 2013 World bronzes), and Agnieszka Wieszczek-Kordus of Poland (2008 Olympic bronze).

In the end, it was Dosho vs Vorobyova for gold. Dosho scored a two-point takedown in the final minute of the match to bring the score from 2-0 to 2-2. Because Dosho’s two-point score was better than either of Vorobyova’s one-point scores, Dosho won the match on criteria, thus dethroning the reigning Olympic and World champion. Dosho’s gold medal was the third of the day for Japanese women in wrestling, as her countrywomen Eri Tosaka and Kaori Icho had won their respective weight classes in dramatic finishes. Of the 18 gold medals awarded in the sport since women’s wrestling joined the Olympic program, Japan has won 11 of them.

Sweden’s Jenny Fransson, who had suffered losses in three World Championship bronze medal bouts, and who had lost to Dosho in the Rio semi-final, made history when she became the first ever Swedish woman to win an Olympic wrestling medal defeating Canadian Dori Yeats 2-1.

The other bronze medal match saw Enas Mostafa become the first ever Egyptian woman to reach a wrestling semi-final, but lost to Kazakhstan’s Elmira Syzdykova, 7-4, dashing hopes of winning her country’s third medal of the Games.