The qualifying tournament in Baku attracted the attention of the sports community all week due to the exclusion of two-time Olympic champion Abdulrashid Sadulayev from the competition. The athlete was not given neutral status due to attending a rally-concert in Luzhniki in 2022 and continuing cooperation with the Dynamo society. The head of the FSBR, Mikhail Mamiashvili, negotiated with foreign colleagues until the very end and tried to somehow change this decision, but the discussion has so far led nowhere.
As a result, Alikhan Zhabrailov had to get a ticket to the Olympics in Paris in the weight category up to 97 kg instead of Sadulayev. Also among the representatives of freestyle wrestling, medalist of the Tokyo Games and World Championships Artur Nayfonov (up to 86 kg) went to Azerbaijan. In all other categories, the national team, thanks to the efforts of Zaur Uguev, Shamil Mamedov, Zaurbek Sidakov and Adbulla Kurbanov, had already won quotas earlier - at the World Championships.
Fortunately, the replacement in the national team in Baku did not significantly affect the final result. And both athletes coped with the assigned tasks. They made it through the morning stage of the tournament without any problems and reached the semi-finals. Victory in them, as in the taekwondo tournament, was enough to obtain a quota.
Zhabrailov's opponent was the Ukrainian Ilya Arkhaya. At first there was an equal fight, but at the end of the period the Russian took a three-point lead and then, after the break, brought the matter to a technical victory. I didn’t notice the opponent’s resistance or the Naifons. In a fight with Georgian Vladimir Gamkrelidze, he earned four points in the first minute, and then defended himself very well, controlling the center of the mat (4:0).
If in freestyle wrestling the Russians went to the tournament in Baku only for two licenses, then the representatives of the Greco-Roman style and the girls had to achieve the maximum number of quotas - 12. Before that, they failed to qualify for the Olympics at the World Championships.
The girls did their job better. They made it to the finals in four out of six weight categories. Championship winners Nadezhda Sokolova (up to 50 kg) and Khanum Velieva (up to 68 kg), as well as less titled Natalya Malysheva (up to 53 kg) and Alina Kasabieva (up to 62 kg) won their bouts. Moreover, for the latter the path to the semi-finals was not easy. As the girl joked, the fans even came up with a new last name for her - Validolina.
“I was just far from in perfect shape. I was preparing for the competition at home and focusing more on healing my leg. You can say that I only worked here for five days on the carpet with the girls. And at home I did more work, tried to take care of my leg, all this of course played a role,” the official website of the FSBR quotes Kasabieva as saying.
At the same time, according to the athlete, even in these fights she was confident of her victory. And in the semi-finals she easily defeated Moldovan Mariana Cerdivara - 6:1.
“I had a feeling that I would not lose and somehow I would take these points. In the first fight with an athlete from Romania, I looked at the clock when there were 40 seconds left, and in the second I didn’t even look. When the coach shouted “get up,” I got up and went to collect the points,” admitted Alice.
Fans also helped Khanum Veliyeva defeat Ukrainian Manola Skobelskaya (12:0). According to the athlete, at some point during the fight they started chanting: “Russia!”
Representatives of the Greco-Roman style brought only two tickets to the Olympics to the Russian national team. Only three out of six athletes managed to reach the main bouts of the tournament. Ruslan Bichurin and Magomed Murtazaliev were eliminated in the 1/8 finals, and Adlet Tyulubaev at the 1/4 stage.
Quite a bit was not enough for Anvar Allahyarov to win the quota. In the weight category up to 60 kg he lost to a very serious opponent - the Turk Enes Basar. The Russian immediately went forward, trying to cut off his opponent’s hand and keep the center of the mat. However, in the second period, the opponent seized the initiative, making two active actions, and with a score of 5:2 took the Olympic license.
Milad Alirzaev in the weight category up to 87 kg met with Belarusian Kirill Maskevich. It turned out to be a duel between two “neutral” athletes. Right up until the very end, there was a stubborn struggle in the fight. Only a minute and a half before the end of the second period, the Russian managed to take the lead, pushing his opponent off the mat. This point earned him a quota for the Games in Paris.
But perhaps no one doubted the victory of two-time Olympic medalist Sergei Semenov. Although he had to fight with the host of the tournament, Beka Kandelaki, so the audience in this fight definitely supported his opponent. However, the Russian made his fans nervous only in the first period. He went into the break with a point advantage, and then pushed his opponent off the mat and led 4:2. With this score the athletes finished the fight.
Thus, in all styles, the Russian team in Azerbaijan won eight quotas in total, in addition to the four already available. The national team will try to take the remaining six at another qualifying tournament in Istanbul, which will be held from May 9 to 12. At the same time, as the head of the FSBR, Mikhail Mamiashvili, constantly repeats, the team has not yet made a final decision whether the wrestlers will go to Paris.