Susaki shows courage and takes bronze; promises to regain her title at the next Olympics

Despite her comfortable victory to take the bronze medal in the women’s 50kg freestyle, Yui Susaki couldn’t muster a smile. She cupped her hands over her chest and bowed repeatedly to the Paris crowd. Susaki’s comeback from a stunning loss in her first match embodied the courage and determination that had carried her to the gold medal at the 2021 Tokyo Games, but the disappointment of not winning back-to-back Olympic titles was still too raw.

Susaki, 25, had planned for the Tokyo Olympics to be the highlight of her wrestling career. The venue was Makuhari Messe in her home prefecture of Chiba. But the moment Susaki stood on stage in a venue without spectators, she changed her mind.

“Next time I want to see this view in a place full of people,” she thought to herself.

Susaki stormed to the gold medal in Tokyo without conceding a single point. Her quest for consecutive Olympic titles was based on similar displays of dominance. After becoming champion, Susaki’s opponents studied and analyzed her moves in greater detail. More and more matches did not go quite as she had expected.

Susaki spent a lot of time honing her ability to react quickly and adapt during a match. She asked Misaki Yoshiba, a training partner since their high school days, to imitate certain wrestlers on the mat, including their movements before a takedown, their techniques and feints. “If they’re going to study how I wrestle, I just have to study them and stay ahead of the curve,” Susaki recalled of her plan to counter her opponents.

Susaki also began traveling abroad to train, reaching out directly to wrestlers she admired through social media and traveling abroad herself. “Jumping into an unknown world alone has the greatest rewards and helped me grow,” Susaki said.

Her destinations included the United States, Germany and Hungary. Even though she didn’t speak the local language, she learned grappling moves and takedown techniques. Susaki added more skills to her repertoire. “She was like a different athlete than the one who competed in Tokyo,” Yoshiba, 24, said admiringly.

Susaki was full of confidence when she arrived in Paris. “I had improved every aspect of my wrestling. I was ready and knew that I could always win, no matter what happened in a match,” Susaki recalls. But in her first match, Susaki lost to an opponent from India whom she had never met before.

After that shocking defeat, encouraging messages from Susaki’s family and friends spurred her on. “At first I thought there was no point if I didn’t become an Olympic champion, but they supported me because I was just myself,” Susaki said.

Since her debut in 2014, Susaki has won 24 consecutive international tournaments and is undefeated against 94 overseas wrestlers. Both streaks are over, but Susaki is determined to make amends for what happened in Paris.

“I will use this disappointment as motivation, and I will definitely win gold at the Games in four and eight years,” Susaki said. “That would be the ultimate way to pay everyone back.”