Silver medallist Matsunaga defeated twice world champion Dilshod Mansurov of Uzbekistan in the quarterfinals and pinned 2007 world champion Besik Kudukhov of Russia in the semifinal.

"It's very hard to win the silver medal," said Matsunaga. "The only thing I can do is to fight until the last minutes. The silver means a lot to the team and also to me."

In the bronze medal matches, Kudukhov scored with three single-leg takedowns to defeat Mansurov 2-0. Kudukhov will move up to 60kg after the Beijing Olympics because he thought it was difficult for him to lose weight.

"I did not come here for a third place," said Kudukhov. "The bronze medal is a medal but it's not what I wanted. I never thought I would lose to Matsunaga. Maybe I was just too confident."

Velikov came from behind to defeat Namig Sevdimov of Azerbaijan in another bronze match 2-1 on a three-point takedown in the second period to win the bronze.

(Xinhua News Agency August 19, 2008)