WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THE TBILISI FAILURE?

At the Summer Olympics in London recently, 7 out of the 10 gold medals won by Azerbaijan fell to the wrestlers. However, at the European Championship held in Tbilisi after only 7 months, the national team performed very poorly. The Azerbaijani wrestlers, who usually returned from Continental Championships with a gold medal in the past seven years, settled for one silver and six bronze medals this time. In the team event, we ended up outside the top three.

Greco-Roman wrestling

Azerbaijani classics at the European Championships won one silver and two bronze medals. The "silver" went to the two-time champion of the continent, Elcin Aliyev (55 kg), who lost the final battle. The world and European champions, Hasan Aliyev (66 kg) and Kamran Mammadov (60 kg), who brought the bronze medal, also fell short of expectations.

It must be noted that problems in Greco-Roman wrestling made themselves felt last year. It is for this reason that the Wrestling Federation parted with the Turkish specialist Salih Boran, replacing him with a board of coaches from seven experts led by Camsid Heyrabadi. Although the main leaders of the team - Rovsan Bayramov and Vitaliy Rahimov - did not go to the tournament in Tbilisi, it is hard to find an explanation for the botched performance of the others. We should not forget that experienced Bayramov and Rahimov may decide to end their boxing careers at any time. In this case, the current staff should adequately replace them. However, the results of the European Championship show that the team is not ready for this.

There has been a setback in the career of the world and European champion Hasan Aliyev. It seems that, having won the two biggest tournaments of the world in 2010, he gave up practices. The wrestler, who knew no equal, is now wrestling with difficulty even in consolation bouts. The promising athlete Rafiq Huseynov did not distinguish himself in Georgia either.

Among the main reasons for the failures of our Greco-Roman wrestlers, specialists name the unsatisfactory level of fitness and overconfidence. Heyrabadi said this in an interview with R+ after joining the national team. Now the Iranian specialist needs to fix this problem. If necessary, some of the illustrious members of the team can be replaced with worthy local wrestlers. The national team needs heroes who strive to succeed and are willing to fight to the very end.

Women's team

Having won two bronze medals, the Azerbaijani women's team led by Yaqub Mammadov shared 6th place with Turkey. Our medallists are Patimat Bagomedova (48 kg) and Anna Belyayeva (63 kg).

Everyone knows that the team went to Tbilisi without major leaders - Maria Stadnik and Yulia Radkevich, who interrupted their practices due to maternity leave. Because of this, we could not expect great success from our female wrestlers. And the two bronze medals they won can be considered a normal result. On the other hand, to prove that success in Tbilisi was not accidental, Bagomedova and Belyayeva have to train harder and achieve success at the world championship.

Freestyle wrestling

The national freestyle wrestling team led by Saypulla Absaidov, on whom great hopes were pinned, took only seventh place in the championship, winning two bronze medals (Yasar Aliyev, 55 kg, and Camaladdin Mahammadov, 120 kg).

We will make no mistake if we say that the freestyle wrestlers who always pleased us with their success failed in Tbilisi. At the decision of the coaches, the national team did not include Olympic champions Togrul Asgarov and Sarif Sarifov, whom the Federation is going to test at the World Championship this autumn. Specialists believe that this decision was quite controversial.

In other countries, Olympic champions take part in various competitions after the Olympics as well, thus confirming that they are the strongest. But in our country, champions are always given a chance to rest for at least one year after the Olympic Games. The athlete needs to participate in competitions, the atmosphere and excitement of which cannot be replaced by any training. An athlete becomes weaker and cannot achieve the results already displayed without practicing.

In the absence of Olympic champions, all eyes were on the team captain Khetag Gazyumov. But the two-time bronze medallist did not even make it into the top three this time. Always distinguished with his fighting qualities, he could not show them in Tbilisi.

Knowing that he would come under a barrage of criticism in Baku, the head coach Saypulla Absaidov declared his readiness to resign if necessary. But resignation is not a way out. The coach must report to the Federation and then start resolving the problem. There is very little time to eliminate shortcomings - in September the wrestlers will have to represent Azerbaijan with credit at the World Championships in Budapest.