Hawai'i's Clarissa Chun, who placed fifth in women's freestyle wrestling at the 2008 Olympic Games, captured a gold medal at the World Championships yesterday in Tokyo.

Chun, competing in the 48-kilogram (105.5 pound) division, defeated Jyldyz Eshimova-Turtbayeva of Kazakhstan in the final.

Chun, a 1999 Roosevelt High graduate from Kapolei, relied on her defense in pulling out a gritty 1-0, 1-0 win at Yoyogi National Stadium.

The 27-year-old Chun became just the fifth American to win a world title in women's freestyle wrestling. She won the first period from the defensive position in the clinch before countering and going behind the powerful 20-year-old Kazakhstan wrestler for the only takedown of the second period.

"It's definitely exciting to win a world title," Chun said. "It's great to come back and win this after what happened at the Olympics. It feels great to be called a world champ, and I want more."

Chun was the only U.S. Olympian among the four women who competed in Beijing who wrestled in the World Championships.

"She lost a heartbreaker at the Olympics — it was rough," said Chun's coach, Keith Wilson. "She had the bracket from hell and wrestled toe-to-toe with everybody. That tournament gave her confidence and let her know she was right there with the best wrestlers in the world. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. She's got a lot of great wrestling left in her if she decides to commit to this for another four years."

Chun's total commitment to the sport actually began last year after she finished fourth in the U.S. World Team Trials. Chun knew then that she needed to become stronger and improve her conditioning if she was going to make a serious run at landing a spot on the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team.

"We changed her training a little bit," Wilson said. "We thought she could win if she did a few things differently. We dedicated ourselves to each other, and she listened to me and trained and she did what I asked her to do. She put the time in and everything clicked. She changed her weight program and her diet. She did a lot of work to become more explosive. She built up her cardio. That made a big difference for her. Instead of losing matches because she's tired, she's scoring points at the end of matches and winning those scrambles."

Chun, who trains in Colorado Springs, Colo. and wrestles for the Sunkist Kids, became the first American since Iris Smith in 2005 to win a world title. She plans to stay in Japan after the Worlds and teach English to elementary school students in Japan.

Information provided by Craig Sesker of USA Wrestling