Japan dominated the podium to haul in a hat-trick of gold medals on Wednesday after winning the top prizes in each of the three women's wrestling freestyle finals to launch up the medal table.Eri Tosakastruck late to clinch the first gold medal of Wednesday's jam-packed wrestling schedule after beating Mariya StadnikofAzerbaijanin the women's 48-kilogram final.Tosaka trailed her opponent 2-1 with three seconds remaining on the clock in her final, but a two-point takedown saw her wrest victory from the jaws of defeat, per college wrestling announcer Jason Bryant:Stadnikwas forced to settle for silver after losing out in the climactic encounter, while Bulgaria's Elitsa Atanasova Yankova and China'sYanan Sun took home a bronze medal each.Yankova edgedPatricia Alejandra Bermudez of Argentina 7-6 in their bronze medal final, while Sun enjoyed a far more one-sided affair against Kazakhstan'sZhuldyz Eshimova, where she was a 10-0 victor.Later on Wednesday,Kaori Icho of Japansealed a fourth successive Olympic gold medal afterdefeating silver medallistRussianValeriia Koblova Zholobovain the women's 58-kilogram freestyle final.Marwa Amri of Tunisia became the first competitor from Africa ever to win a women's wrestling medal after her defeat of Azerbaijan's Yuliya Ratkevich. She was joined on the podium by fellow bronze winner, India'sSakshi Malik, who beatAisuluu Tynybekova ofKyrgyzstan in controversial fashionto take home a medal.The same two countries duelled for the 69-kilogram crown, too, andSara Dosho defeatedRussia'sNatalia Vorobieva to complete a clean sweep of Olympic gold medals for the Japanese female trio.Elsewhere,Elmira Syzdykova of Kazakhstan and Sweden'sJenny Fransson each sealed bronze-medal finishes after beatingEnas Mostafa Youssef Ahmed of Egypt and CanadianDorothy Yeats, respectively.RecapJapanese veteran Icho solidified her place as an Olympic legend on Wednesday, where she became the first woman in history to win individual gold medals in four successive Games with a defeat ofZholobova.Although she may not be a household name, the 32-year-old accomplished a feat never seen before in the Olympics, and NBC's Nick Zaccardi confirmed the 3-2 triumph came by the slimmest of margins:Just as TunisianAmri achieved a first for Africa by winning bronze against AzerbaijaniRatkevich,Malik also became the first-ever female wrestler to win an Olympic medal for India on Wednesday.She beatAisuluu Tynybekova 8-5, but a controversial decision saw theKyrgyzstan wrestler, who led 3-0 at one point, initially refuse to come to the centre of the mat to see her defeat be made official.Vorobieva came close to breaking Japan's iron grip on the gold medals after assembling a 2-0 lead heading into the final phases of her meeting against Dosho, but the tide eventually turned against her.FloWrestling highlighted the fact that, not for the first time on Wednesday, a late manoeuvre went on favour of Japan, a veritable powerhouse in women's wresting:Syzdykova rarely looked out of her rhythm en route to a 7-4 defeat of Egyptian opponentAhmed, whileFransson glanced 23-year-old Yeats to clinch her first taste of Olympic success.Azerbaijan supporters may well have thought a gold medal was as good as theirs on Wednesday, butStadnik was unable to maintain her lead until the final whistle during her showdown against in-form Tosaka.The Japanese upstart is only 22 years of age, but after winning world championships in her weight division for the last three years in succession, she's now added Olympic gold to that considerable collection.Tosaka lit up the Rio de Janeiro crowd with her choice of celebration, too, hailing the efforts of her coach, as shown by FloWrestling:In the bronze finals, Sun earned every bit of her medal following a technical-fall win over KazakhEshimova, needing less than a minute to run the rule over her opponent.Yankova's victory in the other bronze final was a much closer encounter, beating ArgentinianBermudez, 7-6, to bring Bulgaria a belated first medal of Rio 2016.
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