AZERBAIJANI WRESTLERS CONQUER MOSCOW

The World Wrestling Championship, which has just ended in the Russian capital Moscow, was a major success for the Azerbaijani national team, which won 7 medals.  Hasan Aliyev (60 kg) and Xetaq Qozyumov (96 kg) won gold medals, Yuliya Ratkevich (55 kg) and Togrul Askerov (55 kg) won silver medals, and Vitaliy Rahimov (66 kg), Zalimxan Huseynov (60 kg) and Cabrail Hasanov (66 kg) took bronze medals.

The Moscow championship gave Azerbaijan new champions - both Hasan Aliyev and Xetaq Qozyumov proved for the first time that they are the best wrestlers in the world.  On the other hand, there were a number of flaws in our team.  Some serious problems appeared, particularly clearly in the women's team.

First off in the competition for medals at the Moscow Championship were the Greco-Roman wrestlers.  Manager Farid Mansurov led a team which was as young as himself.  The Azerbaijani team which, thanks to Farid's wrestling, won its only gold medal in last year's championship, hailed a new champion:  Hasan Aliyev following in Mansurov's footsteps.  Having won a gold medal earlier this year at the European Championship in Baku, Hasan also put in an excellent performance at the Golden Grand-Prix.  And in Moscow, he proved that he is the best in the 60 kg division.  In the first match, our wrestler defeated Croatian Tonimir Sokolov and then he beat Bulgarian Ivo Angelov.  In the quarterfinals, he outperformed Kyrgyz wrestler Ruslan Timenbayev, and in his semi-final the Kazakh Almat Kepispayev.  In the final, Hasan Aliyev handed out a lesson to the Japanese Ryutaro Matsumoto.  After winning the third, decisive round, Hasan became world champion for the first time in his career.  Now it can be said for sure that he is the undisputed leader of the Azerbaijani national team in Greco-Roman wrestling.  But the young sportsman must not rest on his laurels:  he now has to train for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Vitaliy Rahimov again pleased his fans with a consistent performance in the 66 kg division.  After winning the bronze medal at last year's World Championship, the young wrestler again took bronze, but this time in a new, 66 kg., division.  Vitaliy's success this time was particularly valuable because he was wrestling in the same division that Farid Mansurov graced before he retired from big-time sports.  Further, everyone knows how difficult it is to win in a new division.  Vitaliy's victory in his match with the Armenian wrestler merits special mention.  Our wrestler did his best, winning the third round 5-0.  His bronze medal proves that we can rely on him in the future.

Elcin Aliyev did not live up to expectations in the Greco-Roman wrestling.  Our European champion, who competed in the 60 kg weight division, was a shadow of his former self.  Apparently, this young wrestler, who was considered a favourite and one of the most likely winners of a gold medal, was overconfident.  It is very important now for Elcin to learn the lessons of his defeat.  Otherwise, no one will be surprised if he loses his place in the national team.

The Azerbaijani Greco-Roman team won one gold and one bronze medal and was third in the team rankings after Russia and Turkey.  Thus Azerbaijan is among the world leaders in these disciplines.  The Moscow Championship was also the event in which Farid Mansurov proved himself as team manager.  The successful performances of our Greco-Roman wrestlers show that the double World and double Olympic champion can train new champions too.

The female wrestlers also let us down.  The one exception was Yuliya Ratkevich, who won the silver medal in the 55 kg division.  From the very outset her chances against eight-times world champion Saori Yoshida were not considered to be very great.  Thus there is no point in sensationalising Yuliya's defeat.  However, all the coaches were sure that Sona Ahmadli would win a medal here.  Unfortunately, the former judo wrestler, whose career has been on the rise in recent years, was not at her best in Moscow.  The coaches now have to establish the reasons for her unsuccessful performance.  As a result, our women's team returned from Moscow with only one silver medal, although at the previous championship, they won two gold medals - Mariya Stadnik and Yuliya Ratkevich earning them.  The leader of the team, double European and world champion Mariya Stadnik is now on maternity leave and will only resume training next year.  Anyway, it seems that we should expect changes in the women's team.  Unless new sportswomen are tested in some of the divisions, we will certainly not be able to send a strong team to the Summer Olympics in London.

The second gold medal for the Azerbaijani team came in freestyle wrestling.  A long-awaited victory was achieved by team captain Xetaq Qozyumov.  In Moscow, the European champion went through to the finals of the World Championship in one fell swoop, easily defeating strong opponents.  At the same time, you could feel that he was saving his energy for the final.  There was good reason for this:  all the experts made his opponent in the finals, Hadzhimurad Gatsalov, the clear favourite in the tournament.  And the statistics of matches between these wrestlers was not in Qozyumov's favour - he had regularly lost to Gatsalov.  And the Ossetian wrestler, the leader of the Russian team, had won all the world championships in which he had taken part.  However, this time the four times world and Olympic champion failed to win.  As expected, the final was quite intense.  At the start, both wrestlers spent time testing each other, preferring not to take risks, so there were no throws.  After the first two rounds, the wrestlers were level on points.  The winner was to be decided in the third round, in which our wrestler mobilized his resources and brought off a beautiful throw which made him world champion.  Xetaq thus put an end to 7 years of waiting for Azerbaijani fans of freestyle wrestling - the last time we celebrated was for Arif Abdullayev's victory in the 2003 world championship.  The captain of the Azerbaijani team said that he dedicated his victory to the Azerbaijani people.

The real discovery of the championship was Togrul Askerov, who competed in the 55 kg division.  The 17-year-old sportsman qualified for the world championship only because the person who was supposed to wrestle in this category had been disqualified.  Togrul's excellent performance proves that the coaches can depend on him.  Competing for the first time in a tournament of such a high level against adult sportsmen, Askerov managed to get through to the final.  Then his march to the gold medal was cut short by Viktor Lebedev, a strong wrestler from Russia.  Nonetheless, Togrul's silver medal is precious.  We can already predict a great future for this 17-year-old sportsman.

For two of our freestyle wrestlers, Zalimxan Huseyinov and Cabrail Hasanov, progress to the finals was thwarted by their own mistakes.  Their semi-finals defeats forced them to settle for bronze medals.  European champion and world silver medallist Camsulvara Camsulvarayev (74 kg) and Novruz Temrezov (84 kg) also failed to perform to expectations.  Both wrestlers were knocked out of the tournament early.  In the team rankings, our sportsmen were second only to the Russian team.  Cuba came third.

Overall, the Moscow championship, which featured intense rivalry and competition, was successful for our wrestlers, and we can expect more success from them in the future.