28 March 2024

Thursday, 20:34

IN A KNEELING POSITION

Azerbaijani wrestlers failed at the world championship

Author:

01.10.2019

Unfortunately, Azerbaijani wrestlers could not please their fans at the recent World Wrestling Championship held in Nur-Sultan (Kazakhstan).

The tournament was of great importance, since it guaranteed the licenses for the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo scheduled for July 22 - August 9, 2020. As initially planned, the Azerbaijani national team participated in the world championship with 28 athletes - ten athletes each in Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling teams and eight wrestlers in the women's team. However, each group of athletes from the national team could get only two championship medals: Greco-Romans won one silver and one bronze medal, the women's team - one gold and one bronze medal, and one bronze and two silver medals by freestyle wrestlers.

The ladies performed relatively better than others. Maria Stadnik (-50 kg) became the world champion for the second time and won the title of Olympic athlete for the fourth time. Well, Maria deserves a separate book, of course. Despite her double maternity leaves, this phenomenon of female wrestling yet found strength to return to sports as a champion. In fact, she has no equal in her weight category. As a seven-time European champion, Stadnik had never returned to Baku without Olympic medals. Maria has demonstrated a successful performance this time too. Unfortunately, the men's wrestling team of Azerbaijan was much less fortunate.

In fact, the silver medals won at the world championship by Rafig Huseynov (-82 kg) and Jabrayil Hasanov (-79 kg), as well as the bronze medals of Elis Manolova (-65 kg) and Eldeniz Azizli (-55 kg) do not guarantee them Olympic licenses because the athletes did not perform in the Olympic weight categories. We can only note the success of Sharif Sharifov (-97 kg), who won a license to Tokyo thanks to his silver medal at the world championship.

The Azerbaijani national wrestling team won only two of the 18 possible licenses. In general, the performance of the national team (all three teams) with 1 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze medals cannot be considered satisfactory. Teams in Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling could not get the gold medals of the tournament. It is easy to criticise the referees and complain about the failure to strong opponents. But the main point is that our teams are not ready for prestigious competitions. Rafig Huseynov and Jabrail Hasanov won a silver medal, and Alice Manolova won a bronze medal in non-Olympic weight categories. Inappropriate behaviour of the three-time world champion Haji Aliyev after the defeat (even considering the biased attitude of the referees) requires serious analysis. The absence of the head coach of free-style wrestling team Saypulla Absaidov at the championship also raises questions. For reasons unknown to us, the national wrestling federation did not consider it necessary to take the team coach to Kazakhstan.

By the way, it is very important that the national team has a psychologist who can monitor and maintain the level of psychological readiness of the athletes. All these issues require urgent measures. Otherwise, we risk to be represented in Tokyo by two athletes only.

To obtain licenses for the Summer Olympic Games, winners in non-Olympic weight categories will either have to reduce or increase their weight to the Olympic categories. Tournaments for licenses will start in January next year. One of such tournaments schedules for March 19-22 in Budapest is of the greatest interest for our athletes. Initially, Baku announced its desire to host the tournament, but the Executive Committee of the World Wrestling Association, taking into account the participation of Armenian wrestlers in the competition, considered it appropriate to hold the tournament in Hungary. But it will not be a last chance for our athletes to win licenses for Tokyo. On March 30-April 3, Sofia, Bulgaria will host the world Olympic qualification tournament. Two finalists from each weight category will be the last contenders for participation in the Olympic Games. As a result, we will know the names of all wrestlers in each weight category (16 in total) who will go to Tokyo.

The Azerbaijan Wrestling Federation also agrees with the above-mentioned points. In his interview, acting President of the Azerbaijan Wrestling Federation Namig Aliyev expressed dissatisfaction with the results of the championship: “The world championship was held in a very difficult environment. It was important for us to see the condition of our wrestlers. On the other hand, there were many mistakes. During a meeting of the bureau of the World Wrestling Association, many negative comments were made regarding the referees. I do not want to list all of these comments but I can say that, for example, Rasul Chunayev was twice punished for his passive performance, although the situation was completely different. During the performance of Beki Kandelaki (130 kg), the referee unexpectedly stopped the fight when the score rose to 9:0, and reduced it to 7:0. Kandelaki was forced to continue the fight from a kneeling position. In a word, there were mistakes but we should take into account certain objective and subjective factors too. In any case, our athletes have sufficient potential, and I believe that they will win as many licenses as necessary. In particular, the performances of Greco-Roman wrestlers will definitely be a subject of discussions. We will take specific measures with regard to them. We have less time before the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. We will try to adjust the coaching staff. However, replacing one of the coaches just a year before the Olympic Games is not a prudent move. Our only intention is to strengthen the coaching staff.”

Currently, Azerbaijan has six licenses for participation in the upcoming Tokyo-2020, including one in athletics, two in rhythmic gymnastics (for individual and team performances), one in swimming and two in wrestling.



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