Japan's Hitomi Obara justified her decision to come out of retirement by winning the women's 48kg freestyle wrestling gold in her first Olympic Games at London's Excel Arena on Wednesday.
Obara, who under her maiden name of Sakamoto won seven world titles in the non-Olympic 51kg class, defeated Azerbaijan's Mariya Stadnyk 3-1 in a repeat of last year's world championship final in Istanbul.
In another gold medal bout, Japan's Kaori Icho won her third successive Olympic women's freestyle wrestling 63kg title, defeating China's Jing Ruixue.
Her victory meant Icho remained the lone Olympic champion in an event which only made its debut at the 2004 Games in Athens.
Stadnyk won the opening period convincingly but the 31-year-old Obara stormed back into the contest with several well-judged takedowns and, after her referee raised her arm to confirm her victory, dissolved in floods of tears.
Canada's Carol Huynh, the 2008 Beijing champion who lost to Obara in the semi-finals, took an early lead in her bronze medal bout when, after the opening period ended scoreless, Senegal's Isabelle Sambou drew a blue ball -- the colour of Huynh's singlet.
That gave Huynh the right to mount the first leg-grab attack in the 30 seconds of extra-time and she duly scored.
The second two minute period also ended without any points and this time Huynh drew a blue ball and again made the most of her good fortune to secure a bronze medal.
In the other bronze bout, Clarissa Chun of the United States produced a takedown with a couple of seconds remaining in the opening period to go 1-0 up against Irini Merleni of Ukraine, the inaugural 2004 Athens Games champion and Beijing bronze medallist.
Merleni attacked hard in the second period but Chun's hip-toss extended her lead and she took the bout 3-0.
Merleni was applauded off the mat by Ukraine sporting great and former Olympic pole vault champion Sergei Bubka.
Mongolia's Battsetseg Soronzonbold, the 2010 world champion at 59kg, defeated Canada's Martine Dugrenier, a three-time world champion in the non-Olympic 67kg class, for one of the two bronze medals.
Dugrennier lost to Icho in her opening bout of the Games.
The other bronze was won by Russia's Lubov Volosova, who beat Poland's Monika Michalik 3-1.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/japan-track-wrestling-double-162514965.html
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