Odunayo Adekuoroye and Tunisia’s Marwa Amri on Wednesday became the first African women to the advance to the gold medal finals at the Senior Wrestling World Championships.
Their dreams of gold medals, however, will have to wait for another day as Adekuoroye, a 2015 world bronze medal winner, and Rio 2016 bronze medalist Amri had to settle for silver medals at 55kg and 58kg, respectively, as the first day of women’s events came to a close in Paris.
Adekuoroye gave up a pair of takedowns in the second period to cadet world champion Haruna Okuno, who held on for a 5-4 win, in first gold medal final of the evening.
Okuno, who also won the senior Klippan Open in February became the 24th female wrestler from Japan to win a gold medal at the world championships.
Amri, meanwhile, ran into Rio 2016 gold medalist Helen Maroulis in the 58kg final and could not hold off world and Olympic Games champion as Maroulis rolled up her fifth shutout and fifth technical fall of the day for her second world title.
Culled from United World Wrestling
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