Olympic Wrestling 2016: Medal Winners, Scores and Results from Wednesday

Japan dominated the podium to haul in a hat-trick of gold medals on Wednesday after winning the top prizes in each of the three women's wrestling freestyle finals to launch up the medal table.

Eri Tosaka struck late to clinch the first gold medal of Wednesday's jam-packed wrestling schedule after beating Mariya Stadnik of Azerbaijan in the women's 48-kilogram final. 

Tosaka trailed her opponent 2-1 with three seconds remaining on the clock in her final, but a two-point takedown saw her wrest victory from the jaws of defeat, per college wrestling announcer Jason Bryant:

Stadnik was forced to settle for silver after losing out in the climactic encounter, while Bulgaria's Elitsa Atanasova Yankova and China's Yanan Sun took home a bronze medal each.

Yankova edged Patricia Alejandra Bermudez of Argentina 7-6 in their bronze medal final, while Sun enjoyed a far more one-sided affair against Kazakhstan's Zhuldyz Eshimova, where she was a 10-0 victor.

Later on Wednesday, Kaori Icho of Japan sealed a fourth successive Olympic gold medal after defeating silver medallist Russian Valeriia Koblova Zholobova in the women's 58-kilogram freestyle final.

Marwa Amri of Tunisia became the first competitor from Africa ever to win a women's wrestling medal after her defeat of Azerbaijan's Yuliya Ratkevich. She was joined on the podium by fellow bronze winner, India's Sakshi Malik, who beat Aisuluu Tynybekova of Kyrgyzstan in controversial fashion to take home a medal.

JACK GUEZ/Getty Images

The same two countries duelled for the 69-kilogram crown, too, and Sara Dosho defeated Russia's Natalia Vorobieva to complete a clean sweep of Olympic gold medals for the Japanese female trio.

Elsewhere, Elmira Syzdykova of Kazakhstan and Sweden's Jenny Fransson each sealed bronze-medal finishes after beating Enas Mostafa Youssef Ahmed of Egypt and Canadian Dorothy Yeats, respectively.

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Freestyle 48kg	Eri Tosaka (JPN)	Mariya Stadnik (AZB)	Yanan Sun (CHN) and Elitsa Atanasova Yankova (BUL)
Freestyle 58kg	Kaori Icho (JPN)	Valeriia Koblova Zholobova (RUS)	Marwa Amri (TUN) and Sakshi Malik (IND)
Freestyle 69kg	Sara Dosho (JPN)	Natalia Vorobeva (RUS)	Elmira Syzdykova (KAZ) and Jenny Fransson (SWE)

Recap

Japanese veteran Icho solidified her place as an Olympic legend on Wednesday, where she became the first woman in history to win individual gold medals in four successive Games with a defeat of Zholobova.

Although she may not be a household name, the 32-year-old accomplished a feat never seen before in the Olympics, and NBC's Nick Zaccardi confirmed the 3-2 triumph came by the slimmest of margins:

Just as Tunisian Amri achieved a first for Africa by winning bronze against Azerbaijani Ratkevich, Malik also became the first-ever female wrestler to win an Olympic medal for India on Wednesday.

She beat Aisuluu Tynybekova 8-5, but a controversial decision saw the Kyrgyzstan wrestler, who led 3-0 at one point, initially refuse to come to the centre of the mat to see her defeat be made official.

Vorobieva came close to breaking Japan's iron grip on the gold medals after assembling a 2-0 lead heading into the final phases of her meeting against Dosho, but the tide eventually turned against her.

FloWrestling highlighted the fact that, not for the first time on Wednesday, a late manoeuvre went on favour of Japan, a veritable powerhouse in women's wresting:

Syzdykova rarely looked out of her rhythm en route to a 7-4 defeat of Egyptian opponent Ahmed, while Fransson glanced 23-year-old Yeats to clinch her first taste of Olympic success.

Azerbaijan supporters may well have thought a gold medal was as good as theirs on Wednesday, but Stadnik was unable to maintain her lead until the final whistle during her showdown against in-form Tosaka.

Markus Schreiber/Associated Press

The Japanese upstart is only 22 years of age, but after winning world championships in her weight division for the last three years in succession, she's now added Olympic gold to that considerable collection.

Tosaka lit up the Rio de Janeiro crowd with her choice of celebration, too, hailing the efforts of her coach, as shown by FloWrestling:

In the bronze finals, Sun earned every bit of her medal following a technical-fall win over Kazakh Eshimova, needing less than a minute to run the rule over her opponent.

Yankova's victory in the other bronze final was a much closer encounter, beating Argentinian Bermudez, 7-6, to bring Bulgaria a belated first medal of Rio 2016.