Cuba Wins Two Gold Medals in Greco-Roman Wrestling

In a feat not previously achieved by any athlete, Cuba's Mijain Lopez captured his fourth Olympic gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling after defeating Georgia's Iakobi Kajaia in the 130 kg final on Monday.

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Prior to the Tokyo Olympics, Lopez had won three Olympic gold medals, a feat that Alexander Karelin had also achieved. Born in 1982 in Pinar del Rio, Lopez has had a very successful sports career. In addition to being a four-time Olympic gold medalist, he has won the World Champion five times and the Pan American five times. 

But Cuba's sporting satisfactions did not stop there. On Monday, the Cuban team achieved its first gold medal when Luis Orta (60 kg) defeated Japan's Kenichiro Fumita, 5-1, in the most surprising performance of Greco-Roman wrestling for the Antillean team.

With an impressive run during Sunday's preliminaries, Orta advanced after defeating several Olympic and world medalists. He culminated his Olympic performance amid tears of happiness with his coaches.

This was Orta's first participation in an Olympic Games. Previously, he achieved the bronze medal at the 2019 Pan American Games and gold medals at the 2018 and 2019 Pan American Games.

In athletics, Cuba also reaped other successes on Monday. In the long jump competition, Juan Miguel Echevarria and Maikel Masso won the silver and bronze medals, respectively.

The gold medal went to Greece's Miltiadis Tentoglu, who jumped 8.41 meters. Echevarria also jumped 8.41 meters, but the Greek had a better second jump (8.15 to the Cuban's 8.09), so the Caribbean athlete had to settle for second place. Cuba's Masso won the bronze medal after jumping 8.21 meters.