6 years ago today at the Rio Olympics in 2016 one of the biggest upsets in the history of sports went down as Helen Maroulis knocked off 16x world and olympic champion Saori Yoshida of Japan in the gold medal match by decision 4-1.
Yoshida has the most gold medals out of any wrestling athlete ever at 16. Following closely behind are Kaori Icho at 14 and Aleksandr Karelin at 12. Yoshida was looking to make history to become the 2nd ever four time olympic champ crazy enough one day after her teammate Kaori Icho did it.
In addition to the olympic gold Maroulis has three world titles to her name winning in 2015, 2017, and most recently last year in 2021. She also has a silver medal and a bronze medal plus a bronze at this past Olympics in Tokyo.
At 30 years old it will be interesting to see if Maroulis can make the run to capture a second olympic gold at the next games in Paris. Maroulis has been through a lot in the sport and it was doubtful after the injuries that she would even return for the Tokyo olympics even saying she would retire after.
She is still going strong and will compete at worlds this year in Serbia. Hopefully she decides to keep this going till Paris but who really knows right now.
