The World Wrestling Championship in Belgrade has in many ways become a special event for the entire national sport. While in other sports Russians are not allowed to participate in international competitions of even a smaller scale, in wrestling they were allowed to fight at the world championship and at the same time fight for Olympic licenses.
The only fly in the ointment was the non-admission of 26 members of the Russian and Belarusian delegations out of 235. UWW refused to invite them to Serbia because of their "involvement in the military structures" of states or active support for the NWO. However, most of the athletes were not affected.
In particular, Abasgadzhi Magomedov got the opportunity to perform at the tournament. The native of Dagestan, who almost did not know defeats at the national level, was one of the main favorites in the category up to 61 kg.
True, the championship began for the favorite with a grandiose scandal. Leaving no chance for Nikolay Okhlopkov and Wei Li in the preliminary stages, he already met with Ukrainian Valentin Blesetsky in the quarterfinals. On the mat, the Russian confidently prevailed - 16:4. But the episode after the fight attracted the most attention, when the counterpart refused the traditional handshake.
"It's not a shame, I don't attach importance to it. My job is to prove everything on the mat. I was not upset because the opponent did not want to shake hands. I understood in advance that this would happen. Nothing terrible happened. Who wants - shakes, who does not want - does not shake, this is their business. We are good people, our hand is always open," Magomedov explained.
In turn, the head of the FSBR, Mikhail Mamiashvili, urged not to judge Blesetsky, since such behavior was imposed on him from above.
"This is complete wildness. Magomedov would shake hands, of course, if the opponent wanted it. For him, it made no difference against whom to go out to fight and whom to greet later. Abasgadzhi has no hostile attitude towards rivals, he respects all his colleagues," the functionary said.
The incident really did not affect the athlete in any way, because the next day he easily dealt with Shota Partenadze from Georgia in the semifinals. Thus, on the way to the decisive fight, Abasgadzhi allowed his opponents to score only four points.
However, in the final, he was waiting for an extremely difficult opponent - Vitaly Orujev. He is the son of the famous wrestler of Azerbaijani origin Vugar Orujov, who competed for the USSR, Belarus and Russia and won bronze at the 1992 Olympic Games. After the end of his career, he took up coaching and settled in the United States, where his son was born.
The young man followed in his father's footsteps and won two gold medals at the Pan American Games as part of the Stars and Stripes. Now he was eager to repeat his achievement at the World Cup. At the preliminary stages, the American also looked as confident as possible, consistently leaving no chance for Ossimzhan Dastanbek, Stilyan Yanchev Iliev, Kodai Ogawa and Tayirbek Zhumashbek Uul.
Orudzhev came out with a crazy desire to win and managed to open the scoring. Already in the first minute, he pushed Magomedov off the mat and scored one point. On the second, the situation for the Russian became even more complicated. He tried to hold a reception, but the opponent responded with his counterattack. As a result, in order to understand the episode, the judges had to watch a replay. Alas, the verdict was made in favor of Vitaly. He got six more points, while Abasgadzhi got only four - 4:7.
But even finding himself in a difficult situation, the reigning champion, of course, was not going to give up and imposed a fight on the challenger at the start of the second three-minute period, when he performed a magnificent pass to the legs on the edge of the mat. The opposing team tried to challenge the decision and took the challenge. But this time the referees took the side of the domestic athlete and deducted another point from the American for an incorrectly used challenge. The score was equalized.
It seemed that the Russian on a moral rise, having made such a comeback, would crush Orujev, but everything turned out exactly the opposite. Vis-à-vis actively went forward and managed to hold a fateful reception, and 16 seconds before the end he earned another point. Magomedov tried to attack, but managed only to get penalty points removed from the opponent.
In addition, shortly before the end of the fight, Valery received a cut in the head, but this did not affect its outcome. Before the award ceremony, he simply wiped his blood. It is unlikely that a small injury greatly upset the athlete, who became world champion for the first time in his career.
The Russian, on the other hand, failed to defend the award of the highest standard, won two years ago. However, according to Mamiashvili, in the current realities, this silver is equivalent to gold.
"I'm sure he, together with the coach, set the task of becoming the first, but nothing, Abasgadzhi was adequately selected. I can only congratulate him and wish him success in the future. We know Magomedov's character, and I am sure that his brightest victories are yet to come. And in general, the guys are great, they have hardly seen a large carpet for two years. Our wrestlers performed under tremendous pressure and coped with it," said the president of the FSBR.
Another medal of the national team could be brought by Abdulla Kurbanov, who performs in the heaviest category - up to 125 kg. In the preliminary round, he was stronger than Katriel Pehaun Muriel - 11:0. Unfortunately, the next stage was followed by an offensive defeat from Geno Petriashvili, who eventually won silver.
But the Russian managed to pull himself together and defeated Bali Sow and Robert Baran in the consolation round and got the opportunity to fight for bronze. Alas, it was not possible to impose a fight on another representative of the US national team, Mason Parris. 21-year-old Kurbanov scored only two points, while his opponent scored 12.