Strictly speaking this particular post isn't going to be focused exclusively on women - yet it is partly sparked by tonight's session spent covering women's freestyle wrestling finals for the Olympic News Service. I've never watched any wrestling before and I wasn't sure what to expect; I had vague ideas of large powerful people grappling each other to the floor. I'm also told wrestling was my great-grandmother's favourite sport, so it was interesting to see it.

There was rather a lot of grappling to the floor and it was most confusing for a novice, but the athletes involved were generally fairly tiny and definitely confounded expectations. It turned out I was at the women's 48kg, 58kg and 69kg matches, meaning the heaviest women were only a little bigger than me and the smallest would have needed to eat a fair bit to be allowed to cox a boat at the Olympics.

Tonight saw four wrestling firsts. Kaori Icho of Japan became the first woman to win four consecutive gold medals in an individual event, there was a first-ever wrestling medal for Tunisia and India and Sweden got their first-ever women's wrestling medals. Those last three were helped by wrestling's weird rule in which losing semifinalists go into a repechage bracket with a bunch of other people who have lost, and they fight again until two people win and then they both get bronze medals. I'm not sure why.

Anyway, the Tunisian and Indian girls in particular were totally thrilled with their medals and the Indian, Sakshi Malik, was mobbed by the Indian press pack in the mixed zone. I mean mobbed. They all took pictures on their phones before launching into questions and were all very overexcited (as were the Indian volunteers, I couldn't get the translator to focus on translating). Malik said that she hoped her medal would show that "girls can also do a lot if you give them confidence". She's succeeding at a male-dominated sport in a pretty patriarchal society, and tonight they loved her for it.

The mob reminded me somewhat of Sunday night, when I was working at the Olympic stadium as Usain Bolt won his third 100m gold in a row. Bolt is one of the handful of true superstars in Rio and he knows it. We were waiting almost two hours for him to finally get past all the broadcast and make it to the press mixed zone. The last broadcasters were scrambling for shots as all the press got out their phones and took pictures (I was too busy getting the voice recorder ready on mine, there simply wasn't room to write so I just stuck my arm out and taped it like everyone else). It was essentially a room of seasoned professionals getting totally fanboyish (and girlish) over a man who happens to run very fast for a very short time.

But Bolt uses his stardom well. Earlier the stadium had booed Justin Gatlin - the eventual silver medallist - who was once sanctioned for doping. When asked questions about this both Bolt and Gatlin were properly good sportsmen, deflecting the questions, turning the criticism on the crowd for booing and moving the topic back to their rivalry. Gatlin isn't the only person to be booed at the Games so far; the Brazilian crowds are extremely partisan and will cheerfully boo anyone they find any exception to, such as anyone who's Argentinian thanks to the two countries' long rivalry.

Bolt and Gatlin isn't the only example of good sportsmanship I've seen these Games firsthand. A lot of the rowers and canoeists congratulate each other as they pass in the mixed zone; they're all mates after all. When beaten in the men's single sculls by Mahe Drysdale, by such a small margin that they had the same time, Damir Martin didn't complain, moan or look disappointed. He got up, shook Drysdale's hand and said what an honour it was to compete with him. And then he went on the podium and joined bronze medallist Ondrej Synek in the tradition of lifting the champion up.

Never mind the stuff I haven't seen, but have read about, particularly last night in the 5000m when Nikki Hamblin and Abbey D'Agostino both fell, but helped each other up and ran together to the finish.

Contrast that with tonight. Turns out that losing a wrestling match hurts. In the 48kg weight class the Azerbaijani athlete, Mariya Stadnik, was so distraught at losing that she walked straight past the broadcast pens, and then during the medal ceremony could not muster a smile for anyone and barely looked up. She'd won a silver medal at the Olympics. You would have thought she'd just lost everything that mattered. I can't imagine what that feels like.

I'm not sure I can put that in the class of bad sportsmanship though, as I don't think Stadnik was being deliberately ungracious. She was just desperately, desperately upset. But in the match won by Malik there definitely was bad sportsmanship when her Kyrgz opponent refused to come to the middle of the mat for the judge to award the bout. refused to shake hands with Malik, and stomped off angrily.

It just seemed a shame that on what was otherwise a pretty historic evening for women's wrestling that there were any incidents to mar the night. I do think the Olympics should be about good sportsmanship by both athletes and spectators. It should be, as an utterly lovely Serbian canoe sprinter told me the other day,an opportunity to celebrate the best of people. You compete on the field of play but when the match or race is over, you can put the rivalry aside and just enjoy being part of the world's biggest party.

Luckily, for the most part, it still is.