WRESTLING – Bahrain’s world and Olympic champion Akhmed Tazhudinov has been named the top performer from the freestyle wrestling competition at the Polyak Imre and Varga Janos Memorial, also known as the Budapest Ranking Series, held in Budapest, Hungary.
Tazhudinov captured the gold medal in the men’s 97kg division, and in doing so won all four of his matches by technical superiority – outscoring his opponents 46-2.
Widely considered as the world’s best pound-for-pound freestyle wrestler, Tazhudinov began his campaign by beating Adlan Viskhanov of France 14-2 in the qualification round, and then needed just a minute to defeat Aliaksandr Hushtyn, registered under United World Wrestling (UWW), 11-0 in the quarter-finals. The 22-year-old superstar later took just under two minutes to take out Georgia’s Merab Suleimanishvili 10-0 in the semis, and then secured the coveted title with a resounding 11-0 triumph against Zbigniew Baranowski of Poland.
Tazhudinov’s gold was one of two won by Bahrain’s wrestlers in the meeting. It was part of the UWW Ranking Series, which features competitions held worldwide supervised by the UWW where athletes earn points to establish their world ranking. The other gold was claimed by Shamil Sharipov in the men’s 125kg category, while Magomedrasul Asluev took a bronze in the men’s 74kg event.
Those results – along with the solid performance of Alibeg Alibegov who just missed out on a medal in the men’s 65kg category – earned the kingdom’s national team enough points to take fifth place overall amongst 26 nations from around the world who placed on the final freestyle teams’ ranking.
Tazhudinov and Sharipov scored 25 points apiece, Asluev had 15 points, and Alibegov contributed 10 for a 75-point total.
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