Paris 2024 Olympics - Wrestling - Women's Freestyle 76kg Final - Champ-de-Mars Arena, Paris, France - August 11, 2024. Yuka Kagami of Japan celebrates winning gold in the match against Kennedy Alexis Blades of United States. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
PARIS (Reuters) - Japan's formidable battery of canny wrestlers turned the Champ de Mars Arena into a veritable gold mine a they won eight titles to underline the country's stature as the sport's powerhouse.
The eight gold medals in Japan's kitty is three more than they managed at their home Olympics in Tokyo three years ago and way ahead of Iran, Bulgaria and the United States, who finished with two titles each.
Teams from Russia and Belarus were banned from taking part in the Games over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, with Belarus having been used as a staging ground.
While the Americans made a bold pre-competition prediction that they would sweep the men's freestyle events, the U.S. finished with one gold fewer than in Tokyo.
Japan, on the other hand, were simply unstoppable with four of their women wrestlers winning their events.
That elite group contained Akari Fujinami, who extended her outrageous winning streak to 137 matches en route to gold in the 53kg freestyle.
While Fujinami is in the middle of a remarkable journey, the curtain dropped on another illustrious career.
Cuban great Mijain Lopez became the first Olympian to win five golds in the same individual event.
Unbeaten since 2015 and competing for the first time since winning gold in Tokyo three years ago, the 41-year-old won the title and left his shoes on the mat to signal his retirement.
Vinesh Phogat's disqualification hours before the Indian's gold medal bout for being overweight shone the light on the brutal and drastic measures some grapplers take to fit into categories lower than their natural body weight.
While Russia were absent from the Games, several Russia-born wrestlers turned out for other countries.
On the final day of the competition, Bahrain's Akhmed Tazhudinov, who competed for Russia until 2022, won the 97kg gold.
(Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in Paris; editing by...)
