Wrestling preview, Aug. 7: Sarah Hildebrandt fights for an upgrade from bronze to gold

Three wrestling medals of the Paris Games will be awarded, as the three weight classes that got underway on Tuesday will have their gold medal matches on Wednesday.

Women’s freestyle 50kg

Will Team USA’s Sarah Hildebrandt double down on compatriot Amit Elor‘s gold medal run with a second first-place finish at the Paris Olympics?

It’s certainly possible — though Indian opponent Vinesh Phogat owns two bronze World Wrestling Championship medals and has appeared in three Olympics, the 29-year-old has come away from the Games empty-handed … until now. Phogat upset Japan’s Tokyo 2020 gold medalist Yui Susaki in her opener, and while her two subsequent matches were close, she still managed to emerge victorious.

Men’s Greco-Roman 77kg

Japan’s finalist Nao Kusaka had a haul of almost exclusively bronze medals until this year’s Asian Championships, where the 23-year-old earned gold. He’ll look to repeat the feat over Kazakhstan’s 34-year-old Demeu Zhadrayev, whose biggest win was a silver medal at the 2017 World Wrestling Championships in Paris. (Or maybe the City of Light just suits him?)

Men’s Greco-Roman 97kg

Armenia’s Artur Aleksanyan has placed on each podium position across the last three Olympics: bronze at the 2012 London Olympics, gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics, silver at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The 32-year-old, nicknamed “White Bear,” is guaranteed silver in Paris. To win gold, he’ll have to overwhelm Mohammad Savari of Iran — the Tokyo 2020 bronze medalist who won titles at the 2022 Asian Games and 2023 Asian Championships.