Osamu Watanabe

Who is Osamu Watanabe?

Osamu Watanabe is a Japanese Olympic gold medalist in freestyle wrestling. Born in 1940, he attended Chuo University during a time when they were viewed as one of Japan's dominant collegiate wrestling programs.

In 1962, he took first at the freestyle world championships and followed with first place finishes at that year's Asia Games as well as the following year's world championship. Then, at age 24, before his home nation, he took a gold medal in the 1964 Olympics held in Tokyo. He gave up no points during the tournament, spending a total of 10 minutes on the mat altogether. Perhaps most importantly, he retired afterwards with an unbeaten record of 186-0, making him the only modern Olympian in any style of wrestling to go unbeaten throughout the entirety of his career. He is also known to take on extremely talented young wrestlers from around the world.