American Jordan Burroughs wins Olympic gold in wrestling

LONDON -- A year ago, Jordan Burroughs changed his Twitter handle to @alliseeisgold. On Thursday, Burroughs promised to tweet a picture of himself holding the Olympic gold medal. He delivered on Friday night -- on the mat and on Twitter.

The boastful 24-year-old American backed up all his talk, beating Iran's Sadegh Saeed Goudarzi, 1-0, 1-0, in the men's freestyle 74-kilogram division to give the United States its first wrestling gold medal at the London Games.

"A lot of people call it cocky, people call it overconfident," Burroughs said. "But I knew I was going to win."

Burroughs beat Denis Tsargush of Russia in a tight semifinal, then got past Goudarzi in a rematch of their world championship bout in 2011.

Burroughs, who grew up in New Jersey, has won 38 straight international freestyle matches and is the first Olympian to claim the $250,000 prize from the Living the Dream Medal Fund, a program designed to support U.S. wrestling.

An hour after beating Goudarzi, the tweet-happy Burroughs made good on his word, posting a shot of himself beaming beside his gold.

He won't have to change that boastful handle either -- at least not until the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.

"It's easy to be confident when you put the hard work in that I do," Burroughs said.

Also Friday, Dzhamal Otarsultanov took the men's 55-kg freestyle category, beating Vladimer Khinchegashvili of Georgia to give the Russians four wrestling golds at the London Games, tops for any nation.