Cuban super heavyweight Mijaín López makes history with four straight gold medals in Olympic wrestling.

It was a Cuban night in Tokyo. And more than 12,000 kilometers away, a Tokyo dawn in Cuba.

On the Caribbean island it seemed that everyone woke up early to witness from a distance the long-awaited feat of Greco-Roman wrestler Mijaín López.

Before going out to the streets, to face the risk of covid-19 with its chilling contagion figures despite the vaccination process, people wanted to contemplate the historic moment in which the super heavyweight, about to turn 39, confirmed himself as the greatest in the world with his fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal.

In the 130 kg final, the man who seemed capable of stopping him looked like a toy on the mat of the Makuhari Messe Hall in front of that ebony giant.

When the timer finally stopped, a 5-0 score reflected the scoreboard over the 27-year-old Georgian Iakobi Kajaia, European Games champion, who had reached the quarterfinals at Rio 2016.

Lopez claimed his fourth consecutive gold without conceding a single point against him during his Tokyo adventure which began with wins over Romania’s Alin Alexuc Ciurariu 9-0 and Iran’s Amin Mirzazadeh 8-0.

The five-time world champion and five-time Pan American Games champion faced his longtime rival, Turkey’s Riza Kayaalp, in the semifinal, one of the few wrestlers to have beaten Lopez: it was in the 2015 world final. And undeterred, the Cuban, who had already faced Kayaalp, 31, in the semifinals of London 2012 and in the final of Rio 2016, won the challenge 2-0.

Lopez made his debut at the Athens Olympics, where he accompanied his older brother, Michel Lopez, at that time the best super heavyweight boxer of Cuba, and who would be bronze in that Olympic event.

In Athens, Mijaín won two qualifying fights, but lost in the eighth finals to Russian Khasan Baroev, the only one who has managed to beat him in the Olympic Games.

In the summer of 2004, the wrestler, a native of the western Cuban province of Pinar del Rio, finished in fifth place and began a streak of 17 consecutive bouts in the Olympic Games.

The Cuban accumulates 20 Olympic fights, of which he has won 19. From London 2012 to August 2, 2021 in Tokyo, Mijaín scored 55 points and allowed none in 12 appearances. The last man who has managed to score him was precisely the Russian Baroev in Beijing 2008.

“I feel happy and proud to be the best in the world and make history,” he said Monday night at a press conference.

“I’ve had a long career, working hard to make these successes and break this record. To be able to break this record today, for me, is a great achievement, because I’ve been up against the best and I can be proud.”

Only Japan’s Kaori Icho, in the freestyle, has managed to win four Olympic gold medals in as many Games, in 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016.

Prior to Lopez’s feat, his teammate Luis Alberto Orta Sanchez secured gold in the 60kg by beating Japan’s Kenichiro Fumita 5-1.

Fumita’s illusion went up in smoke : he was looking to become the first Greco-Roman wrestler to win Olympic gold on home soil since Kim Young-Nam, of South Korea, won the 74 kg at Seoul 1988.

“This is a very important step in my career as a professional, also as a person,” he said.

Orta, 26, a native of Havana, said his two-month-old daughter “was my source of inspiration” and he was able to see his baby when he spoke to his family via video call at the box.

At the close of the night in Tokyo Mijaín López hinted that he could be seen in Paris. It is now only three years away.