By Amlan Chakraborty
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Two of wrestling’s biggest rivalries will be missing from the mat at the Paris Games but fans can look forward to seeing how the sport’s newest star handles the Olympic limelight and witness the last hurrah of a Cuban great.
U.S. wrestling has been grappling with a tricky transition since Tamyra Mensah-Stock, Gable Steveson and David Taylor won gold at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.
Mensah-Stock is making a name for herself in the WWE while Gable Steveson also had a stint with the pro wrestling company before switching to the National Football League, signing with the Buffalo Bills.
But it is Taylor’s absence which will be felt most in Paris after he was upset by Aaron Brooks in the Olympic trials.
His freestyle wrestling rivalry with Iran’s Hassan Yazdani has fascinated fans for years. Since 2017, every world and Olympic title in the men’s 86kg freestyle division has been won by one or the other.
Another storied rivalry that is unlikely to see its next chapter written in Paris is the struggle between American Kyle Snyder and Russian Abdulrashid Sadulaev for supremacy in the freestyle 97kg division.
Snyder won gold in Rio but had to settle for silver in Tokyo behind Sadulaev, who also won 86kg gold in 2016. Between them, the pair also won every world title since 2015 until Bahrain’s Russian-born Akhmed Tazhudinov broke their run last year.
However, Sadulaev was ruled ineligible to compete in a European qualifier in April over his support for Russia’s war on Ukraine, meaning his is set to miss out on Paris.
At 20, Amit Elor is already a two-time world champion in the non-Olympic 72kg class and the American will look to live up to the hype as the sport’s next big thing when she goes for gold in the 68kg division at the Champ de Mars Arena.
Elor is at the forefront of a powerful U.S. women’s freestyle squad but Japan remain the benchmark — four of Japan’s five wrestling golds at their home Olympics three years ago came from their women.
Yui Susaki will be the favourite to defend the 50kg gold she won in Tokyo. The 24-year-old’s technical superiority has carried her through a career featuring just three defeats — all to compatriot Yuki Irie.
Akari Fujinami has won 133 consecutive bouts and the twice world champion is set to make her Olympic debut in the 53kg class while Nonoka Ozaki, the reigning world champion in the non-Olympic 65kg class, is also eyeing gold at 68kg.
“I’m one step closer to my dream,” Ozaki said after beating compatriot and Asian champion Ami Ishii in the Olympic trials.
“I will do my best to uphold Japan’s expectations and win the gold medal.”
In the Greco-Roman segment, where wrestlers cannot grasp their opponents below the belt line, Mijain Lopez will try to become the first wrestler to win five Olympic gold medals.
The Cuban great has not competed since his triumph in Tokyo and has spent the last few years wondering if he still has enough in the tank for one last tilt at the Games.
(Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; editing by Peter Rutherford)
