Azerbaijan Takes Second Place at the World Greco-Roman Wrestling Championship: Analysis

The Azerbaijani national Greco-Roman wrestling team has performed successfully at the World Championship held in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.

Idman.biz reports that our national team won 1 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze medals in the competition, scoring 89 points in the overall standings, and for the fifth time in a row, it was among the three strongest teams in the world.

As a result, our team took second place. Iran took first place with 180 points, and Uzbekistan took third place with 79 points.

Ulvi Ganizade (72 kg) won the gold medal. He became the world champion for the second time in a row and went down in Azerbaijani wrestling history as the seventh wrestler to win the world championship twice. In the final, Ganizade defeated Frenchman Ibrahim Ghanemi.

Hasrat Jafarov (67 kg) won the silver medal. The three-time European champion, Olympic bronze medalist, lost to Iranian Saeed Ismaili in the decisive match and became second.

Eldeniz Azizli (55 kg) and Murad Ahmadiev (97 kg) won bronze medals. Azizli became the winner of the World Championship for the seventh time, setting a record in Azerbaijani wrestling history (4 gold, 3 bronze). Ahmadiev, in his debut, defeated four-time Olympic medalist Artur Aleksanyan and won the first world medal of his career.

A number of our wrestlers were out of the medal fight for various reasons, especially due to injuries. Last year's world champion Nihad Mammadli (60 kg) could not participate in the consolation match due to injury. Murad Mammadov (63 kg), Sanan Suleymanov (77 kg), Gurban Gurbanov (82 kg) and others stopped the fight early.

The head coach of the team, Aleksandr Tarakanov, said that the results could have been better:

"Injuries always happen in wrestling, but this time we faced very serious problems. Nevertheless, we have a young reserve in the team and we will prepare them in the future and achieve strong results".

It should be noted that Azerbaijani Greco-Roman wrestlers finished the World Championship with 1 gold, 1 silver, and 2 bronze medals, starting the next Olympic cycle with a promising step.

Zaki Feyzullayev

Idman.biz