By Ken Marantz
OCA Media
Nagoya, Japan, October 3, 2026: The end came hard and harsh for Japan’s Akari Fujinami.
The Paris Olympic champion’s hopes of a wrestling gold at her home Asian Games came crashing down Saturday afternoon with a defeat that was stunning as much for its one-sidedness than the fact that it ended her 155-match winning streak.
Fujinami was dominated in the women’s 57kg semifinals by DPR Korea’s Son Il Sam, who built up a large lead before ending the match with a second-period fall to the shock of the partisan crowd at Inae Sports Center.
Son, the world silver medalist, scored a takedown and two 2-point exposures in the first period for a 6-0 lead. Fujinami’s bid for a comeback after the break never got off the ground, as Son never gave her an opening to shoot for her lethal single-leg takedown.
While keeping Fujinami at bay, Son went on the offensive to complete two barrel rolls to pad her lead to 10-0. That would have ended the match right there on technical superiority, but Son clamped down to make it a victory by fall.
For Fujinami, who had added two victories to the winning streak that stretched back nine years to her junior high school days, the loss was the culmination of the difficult transition from 53kg, the weight class at which she won the Paris Olympics and two world titles, to 57kg.
Since making the jump, Fujinami has had trouble handling the extra strength of the heavier opponents, although she managed to compensate with her superior takedown skills. The Asian Games provided her first test against top-level senior competition.
The streak and her gold medal hopes nearly ended in the first minute of her opening match on Saturday. Mongolia’s Khulan Batkhuyag tripped Fujinami straight to her back and one of the side judges signaled a fall, but it was not confirmed.
Fujinami managed to escape the predicament and, given new life, went on a scoring spree and won the match 16-5.
She then scraped out a 3-0 victory over India’s Manisha to set up the semifinal with Son, who had suffered a last-second loss to American Helen Maroulis in the 2025 world final.
Fujinami’s loss prevents the Japanese women from sweeping all six golds in Nagoya. The home team can still come away with five, as Moe Kiyooka advanced to the 53kg final, to be held later in the night session.