Japan’s Saori Yoshida powered to her third successive Olympic freestyle wrestling gold on Thursday, clinching the third gold for her country, who have dominated the women’s freestyle competition.
One of Japan’s most successful athletes, Yoshida defended the title she won in Beijing and Athens, keeping intact her record of never having lost an Olympic or world championship bout.
She has also won nine world titles and with the victory over Canada’s Tonya Verbeek in the 55kg freestyle final on Thursday she equaled the record of 12 global titles set by Russia’s peerless Aleksandr Karelin, who competed in the Greco-Roman discipline.
Photo: Reuters
Japan have won three of the four women’s wrestling medals at the London Games, outstripping the two golds they won at both the Beijing and Athens Games. Japan’s Kaori Icho also won her third consecutive Olympic gold in the 63kg class on Wednesday.
Wearing an electric blue leotard emblazoned with the head of a roaring tiger, Yoshida backflipped across the mat and threw one of her coaches to the floor at the end of the final.
“I was so stressed, more than at the other two [Olympics],” she said. “I really wanted to fulfill my promise.”
Yoshida never looked like losing and did not drop a point at the London Games, despite saying she did not feel at her best.
She won a tense rematch in the semi-final with Valeria Zhobolov, the Russian who stunned the wrestling world by beating Yoshida in a tournament in May.
Yoshida dominated the final, winning the first two rounds in a best-of-three match. With lightning speed, she twice lifted the Canadian and bundled her to the edge of the mat.
Asked if she would defend her title in Brazil in 2016, she said: “I can’t think about that at the moment. It will take some time.”
The night’s other gold medal final saw Natalia Vorobieva of Russia upset Bulgaria’s world champion Stanka Zlateva Hristova in the 72kg weight class.
The Bulgarian, who won silver in Beijing and is a five-time world champion, had to make do with second place once again after Vorobieva took control.
The former world junior champion closed her eyes and kissed the gold medal as she stood on the Olympic podium for the first time, while Hristova looked on in tears.
Wilyer Abreu watched the ball leave the park and tossed his bat high in the air. His Venezuela teammates streamed out of the dugout in celebration. The comeback was on and the win over the reigning World Baseball Classic (WBC) champion Japan was within reach. Japan, their 11-game WBC winning streak on the line, held a 5-4 lead in the sixth inning of Saturday’s thrilling quarter-final matchup when Abreu put his team ahead with the biggest swing of the game: a three-run shot off Hiromi Itoh that sent the loanDepot Park crowd into a passionate roar and helped seize Venezuela’s 8-5
A BREATHLESS BATTLE: France clinched the championship in a vicious back-and-forth match with England, denying Ireland the title by just a few points France won back-to-back Six Nations titles after beating England 48-46 on a last-second penalty-kick by Thomas Ramos in a thriller for the ages on Saturday. England scored their seventh try in the 77th minute and converted for 46-45. If the score held for a few more minutes, Ireland would have been crowned the champion. But France pressed yet again with 14 men, lost possession, regained it, and earned two simultaneous penalties after the fulltime siren. Captain Antoine Dupont debated with referee Nika Amashukeli where the penalty spots were. Ramos, who did not miss a goal-kick all night, finally lined up his seventh
Home runs are greeted with a celebratory shot of espresso and the donning of an Armani jacket. Victories are marked with bottles of red wine while the soaring voice of opera singer Andrea Bocelli echoes through the locker room. Welcome to baseball, Italian-style. Written off as 80-1 underdogs before the World Baseball Classic started, Italy’s fairytale tournament has carried them all the way to today’s (Taipei time) semi-finals in Miami against Venezuela. On Saturday, Italy — who scored a stunning upset of a star-studded US lineup during the pool phase — kept their unbeaten campaign alive with a nail-biting 8-6
Kimi Antonelli became Formula 1’s second-youngest race winner with a composed drive to victory for Mercedes in an eventful Chinese Grand Prix yesterday. The 19-year-old Italian was the youngest pole position starter and briefly lost the lead to Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari at the start, but retook it soon after and was in control after that. “We did it! We did it!” Antonelli shouted to his team on the radio amid laughs and whoops. It was another 1-2 finish for Mercedes to start the season as Antonelli’s teammate George Russell came through a battle with both Ferraris to finish second. Lewis Hamilton was
RSS