The last time Akari Fujinami had lost a wrestling match, tears had been shed.
She has won multiple Asian Championships and World Championship gold medals. It proved to be a defeat that turned the tide for her. She is the reigning Olympic champion. And she came to the ongoing Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, after winning gold in the 53kg freestyle event at the previous edition in Hangzhou, China. “But I wanted to beat Ito-san so badly, I became serious about it. More than getting better myself, I thought about what I could do every day to get stronger so I could beat Ito-san.”
That defeat had come nine years ago, when a 13-year-old Fujinami lost in the final of the National Junior High School Championship in 2017. For the first time in nine years, at the end of 155 consecutive wins in wrestling matches across all levels, Fujinami had finally been defeated. But what a run this was from a 22-year-old who has won every major title there is in her sport. She has won the U-17 and U-23 World Championships.
“I can still picture myself after the match going to the toilet and crying by myself,” she told United World Wrestling (UWW). “Up to then I had been doing wrestling for fun,” she said to UWW, about the defeat to her school senior Umi Ito.
“I felt that I couldn’t win by just enjoying it. “If I had easily beaten everyone in my first year of junior high, I wouldn’t have gotten to where I am now. A journey that started with the goal of beating a wrestler 18-months her senior, Fujinami became the one to beat.
Because i encountered such obstacles and was determined to overcome them.”, it’s.
As such, I started working harder,” she said.
