Wrestling-Mensah-Stock stuns defending champ Dosho, marches into semis

Listen to this article:

Tokyo 2020 Olympics – Wrestling – Freestyle – Women’s 68kg – Quarterfinal – Makuhari Messe Hall A, Chiba, Japan – August 2, 2021. Tamyra Marianna Stock Mensah of the United States reacts after winning REUTERS/Piroschka Van De Wouw

Reigning world champion Tamyra Mensah-Stock stormed into the semi-finals of the women’s wrestling competition with consummate ease on Monday, winning both her matches by technical superiority on her Olympic debut without dropping a point.

The United States’ Mensah-Stock took just over two minutes to overpower 2016 Olympic champion Sara Dosho of Japan in a 10-0 shutout in her first match before turning in an equally dominant performance against China’s Feng Zhou in the quarter-final.

Dosho was dispatched in a blur of lightning quick takedowns and ankle laces that the Japanese wrestler had no answer to, leaving her shattered.

“I’m so disappointed with myself because I couldn’t deal with my opponent’s tackles many times. I’m stronger than what I used to be,” Dosho, 26, said.

“I really wanted to get the gold medal. I know she is so strong and I wanted to guard against her tackles, but I couldn’t do so.”

The 28-year-old Mensah-Stock then turned her attention to Feng, gaining a two-point advantage barely seconds into the match and followed that up with two double leg takedowns to lead 6-0 at the break.

Four more technical points followed in quick succession and Mensah-Stock earned a 10-0 victory despite Feng mounting a desperate defence, setting up a semi-final clash with Ukraine’s 2018 world champion Alla Cherkasova.

In the men’s Greco Roman welterweight category, Armenia’s Karapet Chalyan marched into the semi-finals with a 5-0 victory by points over Uzbek Jalgasbay Berdimuratov and a narrow 2-1 win over the Russian Olympic Committee’s Aleksandr Chekhirkin.

Chalyan, a bronze medallist at last year’s European Wrestling Championships, will be up against Kyrgyzstan’s former Asian champion Akzhol Makhmudov who impressed with 11-0 and 9-1 victories in his two bouts.

ROC’s Musa Evloev and Armenia’s Artur Aleksanyan — two favourites for gold in the Greco Roman heavyweight category — also qualified for the semi-finals.

Array
(
    [post_type] => post
    [post_status] => publish
    [orderby] => date
    [order] => DESC
    [update_post_term_cache] => 
    [update_post_meta_cache] => 
    [cache_results] => 
    [category__in] => 1
    [posts_per_page] => 4
    [offset] => 0
    [no_found_rows] => 1
    [date_query] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [after] => Array
                        (
                            [year] => 2023
                            [month] => 12
                            [day] => 28
                        )

                    [inclusive] => 1
                )

        )

)

No Posts found for specific category