Super-Heavyweight, Greco-Roman (≤130 kilograms), Men

The last three gold medals in this class had been won by Cuban Mijain López, who was looking for a four-peat in Tokyo. He was also a five-time World Champion but had not won any medals at the Worlds since 2015, and his only international medals since the Rio Olympics had come at the 2018 Central American and Caribbean Games and the 2019 Pan American Games, both of which were gold. López was thus unseeded in Tokyo, as the first seed went to Turkey’s Rıza Kayaalp, the 2019 World Champion.

After an easy win in the first round, López met Iran’s Amin Mirzazadeh and took him out by technical superiority, winning 8-0 in 4:26. He then faced Kayaalp, who fared better but López still won, taking a 2-0 decision to move to the final. The final matched López against Georgian Iakobi Kajaia, a bronze medallist at the 2019 Worlds, and a European silver medallist in 2019 and 2021, but it was another easy victory for López, defeating Kajaia by a 5-0 decision.

López thus won his fourth consecutive gold medal in super-heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestling, making him only the ninth Olympian to win individual gold medals at four consecutive Olympics, and only the seventh to do so in the same event, joining Ray Ewry (USA-ATH; 1900-08 standing high jump and long jump), Paul Elvstrøm (DEN-SAI; 1948-60 one person dinghy), Al Oerter (USA-ATH; 1956-68 discus throw), Carl Lewis (USA-ATH; 1984-96 long jump), Michael Phelps (USA-SWI; 2004-16 200 m individual medley), and Kaori Icho (JPN-WRE; 2004-16) (Icho’s titles were in slightly different weight classes).