Rio de Janeiro: Olympic champion Vladimer Khinchegashvili tipped his beaten foe for stardom after denying Japan's Rei Higuchi an unlikely wrestling gold medal on Friday.
Georgian Khinchegashvili won the men's freestyle under-57kg division in Rio but said he expects 20-year-old Higuchi to take over his mantle one day.
"He's a very strong guy, I'm sure in the future he will win may other titles," said Khinchegashvili, who is also world champion.
"I have a lot of respect for him. It wasn't a surprise to face him in the final because he beat such high level opponents."
Although Georgia is more known for producing talented judoka than wrestlers, Khinchegashvili said he was following a family tradition as his father, who died when he was young, was also a champion wrestler.
He lost to Dzhamal Otarsultanov in the London 2012 final but made up for it this time.
"This was the main goal for me and finally I've achieved it," said Khinchegashvili.
"Before I was world champion, European champion. At the last Olympics I got silver, so now I can say this has been fantastic for me -- I'm very happy."
Higuchi said he will now target Games glory in his homeland in four years' time.
"I will improve my attacking so I can do my best in the Tokyo Olympics (Games)," he vowed.
"I did my best but the Georgian athlete was better at guarding and I have less power than him."
In the bronze medal matches, Haji Aliyev of Azerbaijan pinned Vladimir Dubov of Bulgaria, while former world champion Hassan Rahimi dominated Yowlys Bonne of Cuba.
The day's other category saw something of a surprise as reigning champion and three-time world champion Jordan Burroughs of the United States was stunned in the quarter-finals by Russia's Aniuar Geduev.
The Russian looked on the brink of winning under-74kg gold as he led Iran's Hassan Yazdani 6-0 in the final.
But Yazdani turned things around and snatched victory in the final seconds against the heavily-bandaged Geduev, who was bleeding profusely from his eyebrow throughout the contest.
Geduev kept needing to take a break to have his head re-bandaged, disrupting the flow of the fight.
"What concerned me the most was the breaks the he kept getting. I as worried he was resting and coming back fresher," said Yazdani, who is known as the 'Cat of Juybar', a region in Iran where wrestling is very popular.
They finished 6-6 at the end of the bout but Yazdani triumphed due to being the last to score.
In a tight bout, Jarayil Hasanov of Azerbaijan beat Uzbekistan's Bekzod Abdurakhmonov 8-7 for bronze.
European champion Soner Demeritas won a battle of the bushy beards to snare the other bronze medal, beating Galymzhan Usserbayev of Kazakhstan 6-0.
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