Heavyweight, Freestyle (≤75 kg), Women

The face of women’s wrestling in America, Adeline Gray, came to Rio having dominated the last Olympic cycle, winning the last two World Championships in 75 kg. With three World titles in total (2012, 2014, 2015), Gray’s last defeat in a World Championship match was in 2013 to Zhang Fengliu of China, who went on to win that year’s title but had struggled since then. Gray was favoured to become the first American woman to win an Olympic wrestling gold medal.

Not to be discounted was the experienced two-time Olympic medalist Gyuzel Manyurova of Kazakhstan (2004 silver, 2012 bronze). Also fancied was Canada’s Erica Wiebe, who arrived in Rio world-ranked No. 2, despite just a handful of Grand Prix wins, and had yet to reach the podium at the World Championships.

Gray went out of the competition much earlier than expected when “something” was missing in her quarter-final match against Vasilisa Marzalyuk of Belarus who Gray has dominated in the past, but lost 4-1 on this occasion.

Ultimately, it was the rookie (Wiebe) and the veteran (Manyurova) who would meet in the gold medal match. The Canadian Wiebe, in her Olympic début, did not concede a single point in either the semi-final or final. She dominated the 38-year old Kazakh Manyurova, winning by a score of 6-0, after beating Marzalyuk, Zhang and Germany’s Maria Selmaier earlier in the day. Canada has never missed the podium since women’s wrestling made its Olympic début in Athens in 2004. With this Olympic title, Wiebe followed in the footsteps of her countrywomen, two-time Olympic medalist Carol Huynh, (2008 gold, 2012 bronze) and three-time Olympic medalist Tonya Verbeek (2004 and 2012 silvers, 2008 bronze).

Bronze medals went to Zhang, who defeated Wiebe’s semi-final opponent Marzalyuk 8-4 in the first of the bronze medal matches, while the other went to Yekaterina Bukina of Russia who defeated Laure Ali of Cameroon 5-3, thus depriving of Cameroon of their first ever wrestling medal, male or female.