Six gold and two silver medals: Russian wrestlers started triumphantly at the European Championships in Warsaw

At the European Wrestling Championships, the competition among male freestyle wrestlers ended.

The Russian national team, being half the main composition, and half renewed, won a team victory and won six gold medals out of ten possible, as well as two silver medals.

Attention at the tournament in Warsaw was primarily focused on six weight categories, in which the Olympic awards will be played in August.

In most of them, Russia was represented by those wrestlers who could hardly qualify for a trip to Tokyo, but their success at the continental championship gave them hope to oust the recognized leaders.

The exception was Artur Naifonov.

In his category up to 86 kg, he is the first number of the national team and came to Poland in order to once again confirm this, and at the same time to become the European champion for the third time.

The 23-year-old wrestler did it perfectly - Naifonov won three last matches dry, including the final against Georgian Sandro Aminashvili.

In the category up to 97 kg, the undoubted leader in the world is the Olympic champion Abdulrashid Sadulayev. But he is desperately trying to challenge Alikhan Zhabrailov, who rose from weight to 92 kg and won gold last year at the World Cup - the tournament that replaced the championship of the planet during the coronavirus pandemic. So far, the native of Makhachkala is on the rise - he won the Russian championship, and now he became the best in Europe, defeating the Turk Süleyman Karadeniz in the fight for gold. But even with such a track record, it will be very difficult for Zhabrailov to remove Sadulayev from the composition.

The third victory in the Olympic disciplines was won by Zagir Shakhiyev, who replaced the reigning world champion Gadzhimurad Rashidov in weight up to 65 kg, to whom he lost at the last championship of Russia. The 22-year-old wrestler met resistance only in the semifinals, when, losing to Azerbaijani Ali Rahimzade with a score of 0: 5, he managed to score eight points in a row. The final fight with the owner of the carpet, Krzysztof Benkovsky, Shahiyev won with a score of 13: 2.

In two more categories, potential participants in the Olympics were left with silver. In the lightest weight up to 57 kg, the coaches gave Nachyn Mongush a chance to impose competition in the national team on the two-time world champion Zavur Uguyev. To reach the final, the native of Tuva had to prove his strength with difficulty in each fight. In the decisive duel Mongush was opposed by an experienced Turk, the current vice-world champion Suleiman Atly, who defeated the Russian with a difference of one point.

Special expectations were associated with Sergei Kozyrev in the weight up to 125 kg - he represented the only category in which Russia does not yet have an Olympic license. His participation in the last qualifying tournament depended on how well he performed. Kozyrev did his best - he made it to the final, where he met with the Olympic champion Takha Akgul. Despite the fact that the Turk missed the last 15 months due to the operation, he still ended up head and shoulders above the Russian and won the European Championship for the seventh time.

The only disappointment was the performance of Razambek Zhamalov in the weight category up to 74 kg.

Recently, he began to squeeze the current two-time world champion Zaurbek Sidakov in the national team after winning the World Cup, but he could not prove himself in Warsaw.

In the semifinals, he lost in the last seconds to the Ossetian from Slovakia Taimuraz Salkazanov, and in the fight for the bronze the Russian was not lucky to meet the two-time world champion Frank Chamiso from Italy.

Although in the World Cup final, Zhamalov was stronger than the former Cuban wrestler, but this time he lost to him and was left without a medal.

The second Russian wrestler who did not get on the podium was Malik Shavaev in the non-Olympic weight up to 79 kg, but there were no big expectations associated with him.

In the rest of the weights, which are not included in the program of the Olympic Games, the Russian wrestlers won three gold out of three possible. The most anticipated medal was for Israil Kasumov, representing the category up to 70 kg. On the fourth attempt, he nevertheless became the European champion, having won a strong-willed victory over the Azerbaijani Turan Bayramov in the final. In the weight category up to 61 kg, Abasgadzhi Magomedov pleased the fans with two early victories on the carcass, after which he defeated the Ukrainian Andrey Dzhelep in the fight for gold with a score of 12: 2. Finally, in the up to 92 kg category, Magomed Kurbanov (namesake of the famous professional boxer) confidently won all four fights, including the last one with Swiss Samuel Scherrer.

Further medals at the European Championship in Poland will be played by girls, and the Russian team already has its first successes. Olympic champion Natalya Vorobyova (up to 76 kg), reigning European champion Khanum Veliyeva (up to 68 kg), Veronika Chumikova (up to 59 kg) and Stalvira Orshush (up to 55 kg) reached the finals, and Ekaterina Polishchuk will compete for bronze (up to 50 kg) ).