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Icho wins 63-kilogram gold for Japan
World champion Kaori Icho of Japan beat American Sara McMann 3-2 for the gold medal in the 63-kilogram class at Olympic women's wrestling.
World champion Kaori Icho of Japan beat American Sara McMann 3-2 on Monday for the gold medal in the 63-kilogram class at Olympic women's wrestling.
It was the second difficult loss to Icho in less than a year for McMann, who also lost 4-3 to her in overtime during last year's world finals.
Icho, the sister of 48-kg silver medallist Chiharu Icho, made sure McMann couldn't rely on her superior upper body strength in the second period.
She scurried away during any McMann attempt to lock her up and instead used her speed and quickness to trip up McMann several times, taking her down three times _ with the last and decisive point coming with 23 seconds remaining.
It was the second gold of the night for Japan, which was stunned by the semifinal loss of five-time world champion Kyoko Hamaguchi to 18-year-old Wang Xu of China in the 72-kg semifinals. World champion Saori Yoshida came through to take the gold at 55 kgs by beating Tonya Verbeek of Canada 6-0.
In Monday's third medal event, Wang beat Gouzel Maniourova of Russia to win gold in the 72-kg class. Hamaguchi took the bronze. Japan's large cheering section reacted with boos and disbelief and Greek police spent several minutes restraining Hamaguchi's angry father, former pro wrestler Heigo "The Animal" Hamaguchi, when he appeared ready to jump out of the stands during his daughter's disputed loss to Wang.
At several times, the scoreboard didn't reflect the on-mat scoring, a confusing situation that apparently affected how Hamaguchi wrestled in the final seconds. There also was confusion over a passivity call that benefited Wang.
Chiharu Icho lost in the 48-kg finals to defending world champion Irina Merleni on a tiebreaker after the two tied at 2 through nine minutes. Merleni reached the final by beating American Patricia Miranda 9-0 in a one-sided semifinal in which the Ukraine wrestler opened a 4-0 lead with only 30 seconds gone.
Miranda bounced back to beat Angelique Berthenet of France 12-4 for the bronze after trailing 4-1 early.
