Champion in two categories: wrestler Sadulayev defeated American Snyder and won gold at the Tokyo Games

On the eve of the final competitive day in the Olympic wrestling tournament, several intrigues remained at once. The main one was which country would win the unofficial team event. The USA, Japan and Russia each had three golds each, but the Stars and Stripes were in the lead in terms of the total number of awards. At the same time, each of the national teams still had a chance to replenish the baggage of medals of the highest dignity and single-handedly go to the first line. Takuto Otoguro and Yui Susaki made it to the finals in the 65 and 50 kg categories, respectively, and in the 97 kg division a Russian-American duel was expected between Abdulrashid Sadulayev and Kyle Snyder.

In addition to Sadulayev, Gadzhimurad Rashidov also had a chance for an Olympic award. The reigning world champion in the category up to 65 kilograms lost to Otoguro in the semifinals and until the last moment did not know with whom he would fight for bronze. His opponent was determined only by the results of the consolation tournament, in which the representative of Hungary, Ismail Musukayev, took the upper hand with great difficulty. He surpassed the Mongolian Tulgu Tumur Ochirin by only two points - 4: 2.

Thus, Musukaev had to return to the carpet less than an hour later, but he did not have enough strength to compete for bronze. At first, he was fined one point for passivity, and the key episode occurred in the last seconds of the first round. The Hungarian went on the offensive and almost knocked the Russian down, but went out of the circle, allowing his opponent to score one more point. Ismail was dissatisfied with such a decision of the judges and asked for a “challenge”, but did not succeed, as a result of which Rashidov took the lead with a difference of 3: 0.

At the beginning of the second round, the athletes behaved quite aggressively and literally threw themselves at each other, which led to a collision of heads and the appearance of dissections in both.

After a short medical break, the fight continued, but Musukaev did not benefit from this respite.

In the remaining time, he did not manage to break the score, while he was pushed out of the circle twice more.

Rashidov won the bronze medal of the Olympics and brought Russia the seventh medal in wrestling.

As for Sadulayev, if he won the final, he could forever inscribe his name in the history of sports.

In this case, he not only became a two-time champion of the Games, but also stood on a par with such famous domestic freestyle wrestlers as Mavlet Batirov, Levan Tediashvili and Alexander Medved, who at one time won awards in adjacent weight categories.

But for this he had to pass the most difficult test in the form of the current gold medalist in the division up to 97 kilograms Kyle Snyder - the youngest gold medalist of the Wrestling Games in the history of the United States, who earned this title in Rio de Janeiro.

It is worth noting that the confrontation between Sadulayev and Snyder could be safely called principled.

It was the American who inflicted his second career defeat on the Russian (6: 5) and interrupted the unbeaten run of 75 fights.

This happened at the 2017 World Championships in Paris, but a year later Abdulrashid took a convincing revenge, putting Kyle on his shoulder blades in just 69 seconds.

It was expected that the final match at the Tokyo Olympics would be a spectacular continuation of their many years of confrontation, and the wrestlers fully met expectations.

Throughout all six minutes, the fight kept all the participants in suspense, and the intrigue lived on until the last seconds.

However, on this day, the Russian athlete was stronger and managed to surpass his opponent from the United States again.

The first round was not the most productive.

The first two minutes, the rivals were looking for the keys to each other's defense, while Sadulayev was more active.

Snyder, on the other hand, frankly delayed the course of the fight, for which he was soon fined with a penalty point.

Kyle tried to revenge and rushed forward, but only made a mistake and went out of the circle.

The main events unfolded in the second segment.

During the first one and a half minutes, Snyder tried twice to pass in one leg, but both times he did it too predictably.

In both cases, Sadulayev blocked the opponent's attempt and immediately carried out a coup, thereby increasing the gap to six points.

Snyder found himself in a desperate situation, but, to his credit, did not give up.

At first, he still managed to bring one of his adventurous takedowns to a logical conclusion, and then pushed the smaller Sadulayev out of the circle.

More than a minute remained before the end of the fight - enough time to snatch victory and deprive Abdulrashid of the title of two-time Olympic champion.

But the Russian stopped all attempts of the enemy to turn the tide of the meeting and defended the advantage - 6: 3.

Sadulayev became the Olympic champion in two weight categories and brought Russia the fourth gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. However, this did not help the national team to take first place in the overall team classification. This became known after Otoguro became the champion in the category up to 65 kilograms.