Flyweight, Freestyle (≤48 kg), Women

The 2004 silver medalist, Japan’s Chiharu Icho, was favored after winning the last two World Championships. She made the final against Canada’s Carol Huynh, an ethnic Chinese whose parents had emigrated from Vietnam to Canada, where Huynh was born. Huynh was the 2007 Pan American Champion and had won three medals at the World Championships, silver in 2001, and bronzes in 2000 and 2005. Icho’s biggest win came in the quarter-finals when she pinned the defending Olympic Champion, Iryna Merleni-Mykulchyn, defeating her as she had in the final of the 2007 Worlds. In the final Huynh won the first period, 4-0, and then scored two points in the second period to take that period 2-1, and win the match and the gold medal. She would return in 2012 and add an Olympic bronze medal in this class. She would also add gold medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and the 2011 Pan American Games.