Triumphant return: Vlasov, who missed the Games in Tokyo, became the world champion in Greco-Roman wrestling for the third time

At the World Wrestling Championships in Oslo, the drawing of medals among the masters of the Greco-Roman style started.

On Friday, the results were summed up in the first four weight categories, and in each of them Russian athletes became prize-winners.

Roman Vlasov especially distinguished himself - he returned to the carpet and won his third gold.

The Russian national Greco-Roman wrestling team at these competitions is almost a blank slate. In it, unlike the freestyle wrestling team, there was not a single participant in the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Mostly, the team consisted of ambitious and still little-known wrestlers, and at the same time they were joined by veterans wishing to return to the ranks. First of all, Vlasov is one of those - he did not go for his third Olympic gold, losing the competition, but set himself the goal of spending the next three years with shock in order to be in Paris.

Vlasov entered his usual weight category up to 77 kg, in which there were no winners of the last Olympics. Three of them did not come to Oslo at all, and the bronze medalist Rafig Huseynov from Azerbaijan moved to the heavier weight category. This somewhat facilitated Vlasov's path to the finals, and he really passed it very confidently. In the first three fights, he scored at least ten points, and in the semifinals he defeated Hungarian Tamás Levai with a score of 7: 0.

The next day, Vlasov had to fight the Azerbaijani Sanaom Suleimanov. For a Russian, the two-day format of the competition is still unusual - in it he did not win anything larger than the European Championship. As a result, the decisive battle was really difficult for the Russian. The first transfer to the ground was not credited to him due to the fact that the opponent himself slipped. Then the judges still sent Suleimanov to the carpet for passivity, and the Russian managed to capture and lift the opponent into the air. But Vlasov overestimated his strength - he tried to beautifully throw the Azerbaijani over himself, and he dodged at the last moment.

As a result, for the entire first period, the Russian earned only two points.

After the break, Vlasov had to constantly defend himself, but he withstood the non-stop three-minute attack of Suleimanov and became a three-time world champion.

It is interesting that Vlasov celebrated his first victory more than ten years ago.

After the final bout, he admitted that the current competition had become extremely difficult for him.

“Physically, it was the most difficult world championship for me.

I understood the degree of responsibility, I understood that I am the captain of the team, and we have not yet won the gold medal, and there is a huge gap between victory and defeat.

I knew that not just a team was behind me, but a whole country.

Right now I needed this gold medal like air.

To be the best in the world is my daily dream, this is what I think about every morning when I go to training, ”said Vlasov.

The rest of the Russian wrestlers on Friday found themselves on the second or third steps of the podium. In the lightest weight category up to 55 kg, the team was represented by Emin Sefershaev - the winner of the last year's World Cup, which was a replacement for the full-fledged championship of the planet. Already in the first fight, he had to face the 2019 world champion Nugzari Tsurtsumiya from Georgia. In this tense fight, the Russian won with an almost equal score 3: 2. The fight with Armenian Norayr Akoyan in the semifinals ended in the same way.

For gold Sefershaev fought with the representative of Japan Ken Matsui, who unexpectedly reached the second day of the competition. The Russian actively fought, but twice his throws from the ground were canceled due to a hold below the belt, and another spectacular attempt to earn points after jumping behind the back ended with a counterattack. Matsui, on the other hand, always acted within the framework of the rules and eventually brought the matter to victory with a score of 7: 1.

In the weight category up to 72 kg, Sergey Kutuzov performed, for whom a trip to the world championship in itself was the greatest achievement in his career, and in the end he took a medal from Oslo. On the first day of the competition, he spent one beautiful fight after another and did not miss two much more experienced rivals - the Pole Gevorg Sahakyan and the Turkish Cengiz Arslan, and Kutuzov won the latter with a score of 10: 0. The 22-year-old Russian stumbled only in the final, where he met with the Armenian Malkhas Amoyan. The outcome of the fight was influenced by the stalls, in which Kutuzov found himself in the first period. In it, he gave his opponent three points, after which he did not have time to recoup. 

The European champion in weight up to 82 kg Adlan Akiyev could well have been expected in the final, judging by his strength in the first two fights.

He not only scored nine points more than his rivals in them, but also defeated the German Hannes Wagner on the carcass.

But further the path was blocked by the Hussein who had risen from the lighter category.

In an absolutely equal fight Akiev lost 1: 2.

He compensated for the bitterness of defeat with a confident victory over the Swede Alex Kissides in the fight for bronze.

Four medals out of four possible allowed the Russian national Greco-Roman wrestling team to lead the team standings with a margin of 14 points.

In total, Russian wrestlers have won 14 awards in all the types of programs that have taken place - according to this indicator, the team shares the first place with the United States.