Ilkin Gurbanov on his Bronze Medal at the U-23 European Championship and Future Goals

Ilkin Gurbanov, who won a bronze medal at the U-23 European Greco-Roman Wrestling Championship held in Zrenjanin, Serbia, competed in his first international competition in the 63 kg weight category.

Idman.Biz reports that the athlete stated this in his statement to report.az.

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 homeland without medals. Like every athlete, we came here for the gold medal, but that was our fate. I justified the chance given to me by the coaches, even if it was a little. This was my first prestigious competition at 63 kg. 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 competing in the 67 kg weight category and had lost a lot of weight to come here. My coaches instructed me to tire the opponent with tempo and active wrestling because 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 to be held 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.