Rio 2016: Olympic Freestyle Wrestling: Day 1 Recap - Icho makes history

Freestyle wrestling kicked off on Wednesday as the women took to the mat. This recap looks back at the first day of freestyle wrestling that featured a relative newcomer to the Olympic scene for Team USA and another woman attempting to make Olympic wrestling history.

Kaori Icho was the big story of the day as she attempted to become the first wrestler, regardless of gender, to win four Olympic gold medals. She displayed the skills that allowed her to be a long-time force in the sport, as she reached the finals with a 23-1 points margin in three matches. She faced a very game opponent in Valeria Koblova Zholobova and Russia. After being down at the end of the first period, Icho would fight her way back, with help by fouls from Koblova, to win her fourth gold medal and claim a position never reached in Olympic history.

Haley Augello competed in his first Olympic games and had a strong showing for Team USA. In her first match she dominated Dutch wrestler Jessica Blaszka. This is a huge win for Augello as Blaszka is the bronze medalist from the 2015 World Championships.

Augello would then face Eri Tosaka who has won the last three world titles in wrestling. Augello was unable to get any offense going in the match and ended up losing 11-2. However, Tosaka would win her next match which would pull Augello into the repecharge in an attempt to come away with an Olympic medal.

In the repecharge Augello faced off against Jyldyz Eshimova of Kazakhstan. Augello got down on points early but hit a great double leg to bring the score to 3-2. Unfortunately, she would be unable to recover the final points needed to win and her day would be over with a 1-2 record in her first Olympic outing.

Day two of freestyle wrestling kicks off with more women as Adeline Gray, Helen Maroulis, and Elena Pirozhkova represent Team USA.