Featherweight, Freestyle (≤57 kilograms), Men

The seeding seemed a bit unusual as the 2018 and 2019 World Champion, Zavur Uguyev, of the Russian Olympic Committee team, was seeded only #2 behind Serbia’s Stevan Mićić. Mićić had wrestled in college in the United States at the University of Michigan and had won a Big 10 Conference Championship but had no major international titles. Seeded #3 was Indian freestyler Ravi Kumar, the 2020 and 2021 Asian Champion.

Mićić failed to live up to his seeding, being dominated in round one by Japan’s Yuki Takahashi, 7-0. Uguyev had a difficult first round match-up, facing American Thomas Gilman, the silver medallist at Worlds in 2017, but Uguyev held on to win a tight bout, 5-4. Uguyev continued to have tight matches but made it to the final, where he faced Ravi, who had been completely untested in winning three matches, one by fall and two by technical superiority.

Despite Uguyev’s early struggles he defeated Kumar in the final to win the gold medal, by a 7-4 decision. Gilman went through the repêchage to win a bronze medal, while the other bronze went to Kazakhstan’s Nurislam Sanayev, who had lost in the semi-finals to Ravi.