Eri Tosaka

Eri Tosaka
	Tosaka in 2016
Personal information
Native name	登坂絵莉
Born	30 August 1993 (age 30); Takaoka, Toyama, Japan
Height	152 cm (5 ft 0 in)
Weight	48 kg (106 lb)
Sport
Country	Japan
Sport	Wrestling
Event	Freestyle
College team	Shigakkan University Wrestling Team
Coached by	Kazuhito Sakae
Medal record
Women's freestyle wrestling
Representing Japan
Olympic Games
World Championships
Asian Championships
Summer Universiade

Eri Tosaka (登坂絵莉, Tōsaka Eri, born 30 August 1993) is a Japanese freestyle wrestler.

Background[edit]

She competes in the 48 kg division and won the silver medal in the same division at the 2012 World Wrestling Championships. Her performance improved in the 2013 World Wrestling Championships where she won the gold medal after defeating Mayelis Caripá of Venezuela.^[1] She won the 2016 Rio Olympic gold medal for Women's 48 kg freestyle wrestling by 3-2 decision over Mariya Stadnik of Azerbaijan. She was trailing by a point till very late in the match. She was successful in converting a takedown with two seconds remaining on the clock to win the gold medal bout.

She graduated from Shigakkan Uni's Department of health and sports science. In 2016, she then went on to Shigakkan University's Graduated school and became a member of the women's wrestling team.

She started wresting in elementary school with the Takaoka Junior Class by her father's recommendation who competed and won in the national polity's Greco-Roman wresting competitions' 48kg weight class.

By the time she entered middle school, she transferred to MIYAHARA GYM run by her father where the members are known to train more intensely. Come her 3rd year, the Takaoka Junior Class began to catch up and practice more intensely too, prompting her to return to team again. Then, she won the national middle school championship.

After she entered high school, she won twice consecutively at the national high school girls' championship. In her 3rd year, she competed in the All Japan wresting championship where she defeated Miyu Yamamoto in the 2nd round and advanced to the next round where she lost to Hitomi Obara (both famous female wrestlers).

After enrolling in Shigakkan University, she participated in the Junior Olympics and won in the 51kg weight class, one class higher. At the Wrestling World Cup, her name was included in the list of winning members despite not attending. At the Japanese National Wrestling Championship, she won and was chosen to be a representative of the 48kg weight class.

In 2012, the World Wrestling Championship was held in Strathcona County, Canada, where Tosaka competed against Belarusian Vanessa Kaladzinskaya. During the final competition, the third period ended in a tie when Kaladzinskaya pushed Tosaka out of the ring just before the end of the round, earning a score of 2 to 2. Tosaka's team called for a video replay to check what happen, and it was then announced that the point would go to Tosaka, declaring her the winner. However, Kaladzinskaya 's team then challenged the ruling and noted that she backed Tosaka before she pushed her out of the ring. This then gave Kaladzinskaya the final point and the win, once again overturning the ruling. Normally, participants aren't allowed to challenge the rulings after a match. Even though Mario Saletnig who worked as the head judge for the match recognized this, he lied and stated that Kaladzinskaya's team was the one that challenged the ruling, ignoring protests from Tosaka's team. After that, Tosaka destroyed second year Irie Yuki in the Japanese National Wrestling Championship and won.

In June 2013, she won at the Japanese National Wrestling Championship and was once again selected to be a representative. In July, she also won in Universiade. In September, she proceeded to win favorably at the Wrestling World Championship, and she defeated Venezuelan Mayelis Caripa, avenging herself from her second place finish in the previous tournament.

In 2014, she won the World Cup, and beat Japanese Miyahara who dropped from the 51kg weight class, marking her third consecutive victory. She was then chosen to be a world championship representative. At the World Championship, she beat Polish Iwona Matkowka by a huge difference with a score of 10 to 2, achieving her second consecutive win. Then she went on to the Asian Games where she beat the 2013 51kg weight class world champion Sun Yanan from China with a score of 5 to 1. In December, she achieved her third consecutive win at the Japanese National Wrestling Championship.

In June 2015, she achieved four consecutive wins at the Japanese National Championship, and was chosen to be a representative at the World Championship. In September at the World Championship finals, she went up against London Olympic gold medalist Mariya Stadnik from Azerbaijan. Tosaka was given two points due to an activity time (AT) warning, but was able to tie the score in the last ten seconds with a one-legged tackle. In order to declare a winner from this tie, Stadnik challenged the judge's ruling, saying that the point where she was pushed out of the ring was just one point, but this was not approved. The score became 3 to 2 and Tosaka achieved her third consecutive victory at the World Championship. With this win, as long as she participated in the Japanese National Championship in December, she would be offered to be a representative at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. As a measure against strong foreign athletes, she competed in the 53kg weight class at the Japanese National Championship in December, and competed against third year Irie Nanami from Kyushu Kyoritsu University. While it was a close match, Tosaka won the competition and became an Olympic representative.