Natalia Vorobieva of Russia has claimed an Olympic wrestling gold in the women's 72-kg freestyle and so lifted Russia to fourth place overall in the medal standings.

      The 21-year-old wrestler, a three-time junior world champion, thrashed  Bulgaria veteran Stanka Zlateva Hristova. Vorobieva dropped the first period, but then managed to pin her opponent just 46 seconds into the second.

      The power of Russian female wrestlers was obvious that Thursday. Two Russian boxers,  Sofya Ochigava and Nadezda Torlopova, have claimed two silver medals at the London Olympics.

      Ochigava lost the final of the lightweight division to Katie Taylor of Ireland. The Russian lost 10-8 in the fight against he unofficial pound-for-pound champion of women's boxing.

      In the middleweight division, American Claressa Shields snatched the gold, defeating Russia's Nadezda Torlopova 19-12.

      Russia's Alexey Korovashkov and Ilya Pervukhin took a surprise bronze in the men's canoe double 1000 meters on Thursday. The Russian team managed to outrun the team from Azerbaijan to the bronze by less than a second in 3:36.41.

      The gold medals went to Peter Kretschmer and Kurt Kuschela from German, who won in three minutes, 33.8 seconds.

      Belarusian brothers and defending Olympic champions Andrei and Aleksandr Bahdanovich shot through with the German pair into silver in 3:35.20.

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