Report.az
Ilkin Gurbanov, who won a bronze medal at the U-23 European Championship held in Zrenjanin, Serbia, competed in his first international competition in the 63 kg weight category.
The athlete stated this in an interview with "Report".
He noted that he was satisfied with the result, despite his debut in the new weight category: "Thank God, we are not returning to our country without a medal. Like every athlete, we came here for a gold medal, but fate had other plans. I justified the chance given to me by the coaches, even if only a little. This was my first prestigious competition in the 63 kg weight category. I used to wrestle at 60 kg. Nevertheless, I managed to win a bronze medal. I thank the Azerbaijan Wrestling Federation, my personal coach, as well as the MOIK club and my family for their support."
Ilkin spoke about the difficult match he had for the bronze medal and his opponent: "My most difficult match was against my Georgian opponent for the bronze medal. He is actually an athlete who competes in the 67 kg weight category and had to lose a lot of weight to come here. My coaches instructed me to tire the opponent with tempo and active wrestling, as he had lost too much weight. I followed the instructions, tired the opponent, and won."
The wrestler emphasized that his next main goal is to become a world champion: "We had every condition for preparation, we had high-level training camps in Goygol and Baku. Now we have time ahead. My main goal is to replace this bronze medal with gold at the U-23 World Championship in October. Like every athlete, my biggest dream is to become a European, world and Olympic champion."
It should be noted that I. Gurbanov defeated Georgian Rati Kozrevanidze with a score of 8:3 in the match for the bronze medal.
