Azerbaijani athletes have achieved a historic success at the MMA World Championship held in São Paulo, Brazil.
The head coach of the national team consisting of teenagers, Natig Guliyev, informed "Report" about this.
He said that our representatives won a record number of 8 medals for the first time in an international tournament:
"The competition held in Brazil was even higher than we expected. For the first time in the history of Azerbaijan, our MMA fighters won 3 gold, 1 silver and 4 bronze medals. There has never been such a result before. The children fought very well. The fights were very difficult, heavy. Each of the athletes fulfilled the tasks. We thank the Minister of Sports Farid Gayibov, as well as the President of the Azerbaijan MMA and Grappling Federation Azad Asgarov for creating such conditions for us. We managed to raise the Azerbaijani flag three times in Brazil and have our anthem played."
The head coach spoke about the upcoming plans:
"We continue with the plan presented to us. International competitions are expected in September-October. There is also the European Championship. We will hold discussions with the management and determine the time of training camps."
It should be noted that in the U-18 age group, Adil Abuzarov (61.2 kg) won gold, and Muhammad Niftullayev (65.8 kg) won silver. In the U-21 category, Elvin Gurbanov (56.7 kg), Ali Sharifov (74.9 kg) and Miramin Mirheydarzade (70.3 kg) won silver medals. Among adults, Sardar Sardarli (65.8 kg) and Nihad Guliyev (74.9 kg) won gold, and Tofig Niftaliyev (120.2 kg) won bronze.