Portrait
Olympic Games 2024: French wrestler Zelimkhan Khadjiev dreams of coming full circle in Paris
Suspended four years for doping in 2019, wrestler Zelimkhan Khadjiev resumed training at Insep last September. He is one of the thirteen French people selected to compete in the Olympic qualifying tournament in Baku in Azerbaijan from April 5 to 7, one of the last opportunities to win a ticket for the Paris Games.
Frenchman Zelimkhan Khadjiev masters Japanese Sohsuke Takatani in 74kg freestyle wrestling on August 19, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro AFP/Archives
By: Farid Achache Follow
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At the National Institute of Sports, Expertise and Performance (Insep), Zelimkhan Khadjiev is struggling to regain his former level. He suffers, sweats, but never lets go of the idea of following his dream, experiencing
the Games at home
to better forget these four years of purgatory which ruined part of his life as a top athlete. level. He was deprived of the Tokyo Olympics after a positive test in September 2019 for Vastarel, a drug supposed to relieve angina and whose active ingredient, trimetazidine, has been banned since 2014 by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
Building on the Rio 2016 experience
“
I accepted the suspension as a test of life
,” he said without the slightest bitterness.
I didn't want to lose energy, even if it
“
ate my brain”
for several months. I suffered morally, and it would have been a bad choice to continue ruminating. My family helped me a lot to put things into perspective.
» A form of counterattack for someone who avoids nothing and who never stops himself from smiling.
At 29 years old, Zelimkhan Khadjiev knows that the international level is very high and that young people are pushing hard. Nothing lasts, there is no more time to waste for this change of takes. “
As I am explosive, I feel fatigue in my legs more quickly. I had to find sensations again. And since I don't have much time left to qualify, I sometimes tend to get angry
,” he says.
The one who participated in the
Rio Olympics in 2016
as the only male tricolor, can in any case rely on his experience to succeed in his quest. “
I don't want to have any regrets in my life, I know that the Games taking place in Paris will be the last for me and I have to try my luck.
»
Don't miss out on Paris 2024
Zelimkhan Khadjiev has wrestling in his blood. “
I have often been told that I have talent
,” he laughs. As a child, in Dagestan, he was promised a great future in this discipline practiced in Antiquity in Greece. Today, the double European medalist in the 74 kilos in 2018 and 2019 admits to being under pressure, tired by diets (he had to lose 11 kilos), but wants to continue to “
do well
”, so as not to miss out on this unique opportunity to return to the spotlight in Paris. Like all top athletes, he knows that an Olympic title has the power to change a life. For Zelimkhan Khadjiev, there is no desire for revenge, no self-flagellation.
During his four-year suspension, this disgraced wrestler was not allowed to enter the doors of a wrestling room. Isolated, he went to give advice to MMA fighters like
Ciryl Gane
or
Francis Ngannou
, “
machines
” according to him.
After his wrestling career, Zelimkhan Khadjiev will perhaps try his luck in MMA. In the meantime, it is not in a cage, but on the mat that he will give everything he has to be able to become Olympic champion. But all this first requires qualification and Zelimkhan Khadjiev spares no effort. It's already that.
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