The legend Mijain Lopez-Nunez will be 41 years old when he steps on the mat for the final time at the Paris Olympics. Lopez has done it all in the sport of wrestling winning Olympic gold in Beijing, London, Rio, and this past cycle along with a 5th place finish in Athens all the way back in 2004.
Athens 2004:
At the Athens Olympics Lopez would make it out of the pool stage 2-0 with wins over Yetka Yilmaz Gul of Turkey and Yuri Evselchik of Israel.
In the main bracket he would fall to eventual champion Russia’s Khasan Baroev 2-0. Lopez would end up defeating Baroev for his second world title in 2007 after Baroev beat him again in the world finals in 2006.
Lopez would however win the 5-6th place match over France’s Yannick Szczepanick to round up his first run at the Olympic Games.
Beijing 2008:
Heading into the Beijing Olympics Lopez had already solidified himself as the favorite to win the tournament being the reigning world champion winning titles in 2005 and 2007.
His run was pretty dominant as he cruised past Belarus, Armenia, and Sweden on his way to the finals where he would be set for a rematch against Khasan Baroev.
It was all Lopez this time as he won the match 6-1 to secure his first Olympic gold medal.
London 2012:
The year prior at the 2011 world championships Lopez fell to Turkey’s Riza Kayaalp in the finals, but there is a lot of controversy to this match as many claim that Lopez was paid to throw the match.
Lopez would win his first two matches of the Olympic Games with ease to set up a semifinal meeting with Kayaalp where he would get revenge 3-0 and advance to the finals to face Estonia’s Heiki Nabi.
It was a controlled victory in the finals for Lopez as he shut out Nabi 3-0 to win his second Olympic gold medal.
Rio 2016:
Lopez’s Rio run is what I consider to be the most impressive one. He cruised his way to the finals after defeating Heiki Nabi who he faced in the London finals first round Sweden’s Johan Euren in the quarterfinals, and defeated Russia’s Sergey Semenov in the semis shutting out all 3 opponents.
On the other side of the bracket Turkey’s Riza Kayaalp cruised his way to the finals with ease winning by tech in round one over Venezuela, pin in round two against Azerbaijan and tech in the semifinals against Germany and would Lopez in the finals.
The year prior at the world championships Kayaalp once against upset Lopez in the finals but again not without controversy.
The finals would be all Lopez from start to finish and dominantly so as he would hit a massive 4 point move at the start of the match and never look back winning 6-0 to secure his 3rd Olympic gold medal.
Tokyo 2020:
Most assumed that this would be Lopez’s final event and that he would leave his shoes out on the mat after winning his 4th Olympic gold being that he had essentially not competed the entire cycle since Rio.
At 38 years old there was a lot of doubt on whether or not his best years were behind him and whether Riza Kayaalp would finally get it done this time.
Lopez left no doubt as he once again dominated the field. A round one tech over South Korea, a quarterfinal tech over soon to be world champion Iran’s Amin Mirzazadeh, and yet another win over Riza Kayaalp in the semis resulting in a 2-0 win for Lopez.
In the finals he faces Georgia’a Iakobi Kajaia who had a nice quarterfinal win over Sergey Semenov of Russia but really stood no chance against Lopez. It was easy work for Lopez as he shut out the Georgian 5-0 to win his 4th Olympic gold medal becoming only the second ever to do so and first male wrestler ever to accomplish this feat.
Paris 2024:
Lopez will be 41 years old when he takes the mat at the Paris Olympics. Should he win his 5th Olympic gold medal here this is a record that will most likely never be broken again and he will probably go down as unanimously the greatest ever.