Kenichiro Fumita (above) will fight China’s Cao Liguo in the final of the men’s Greco-Roman wrestling under 60 kilograms class on Tuesday at the Olympic Games in Paris.
15:25 JST, August 7, 2024
PARIS–With less than 10 seconds left in the final of the men’s Greco-Roman wrestling 60-kilogram division, China’s Cao Liguo was getting more aggressive. But Kenichiro Fumita remained calm. He held on, withstood the counterattacks and ultimately won. “I’m very happy,” Fumita said after the match. “It’s been a long time. I’ve been in pain and struggle since the Tokyo Olympics.”
The silver medal Fumita won three years ago was the beginning of his struggles. In the final of the Tokyo Games, he buckled under the pressure of his Cuban opponent, failed to execute the front suplex he was so confident of and burst into tears.
Then he abandoned his favorite throw, thinking that if he couldn’t win with it, he didn’t need it. He then thoroughly implemented a tactic of solid defense and scoring points with pinning techniques. Fumita thought, “It’s unspectacular and uninteresting. But if it’s a winning style, I’ll stick with it.”
Looking back on his previous style, he said: “I was stubborn, if I may say so myself.”
But as soon as he threw away his signature move, he got the missing piece back.
Fumita said he could now “say with certainty that my competitive attributes are hybrid wrestling, combining throwing and defense.”
True to his words, he won the semifinals at the Paris Games with his dynamic throw and the final with his solid defense. “All the wrestling I worked on for three years came to fruition,” he said. The detour was not in vain.
