Iran placed third overall in Greco-Roman and second in freestyle. Russia came in first in both. With combined team points of 71, Iran was behind first placed Russia with 84 points and ahead of third placed Azerbaijan with 58 points,
Iran’s high standing in Greco-Roman came despite the fact that one of its grapplers was dumped from the championships when he refused to wrestle an Israeli.
Over the decades, Iran has normally ranked very high in freestyle but poorly in Greco-Roman. In recent years, however, Iran has been recording outstanding outcomes in Greco-Roman competitions. At this year’s World Championships, Iran won two golds and a bronze in Greco-Roman and two golds, a silver and a bronze in freestyle.
This year’s championships were held in Istanbul with 73 countries sending 309 Greco-Roman wrestlers and 80 sending 301 freestyle wrestlers.
This year’s competition had the added interest of being a qualifying round for next year’s Olympics. The top six men in each of the seven weight divisions of Greco-Roman and freestyle qualify for the Olympics. As a result, Iran has thus far placed men in three Greco-Roman and four freestyle divisions for the London Olympics.
Wrestling has gotten a lot tougher in the two decades since the Soviet Union collapsed. The Soviets always dominated wrestling-but it could only send one wrestler in each weight division. With the breakup of the Soviet Union into 15 countries, they can now send 15 teams. That shows. Of the top 10 teams in freestyle this year, five were formerly part of the Soviet Union. In Greco-Roman, five of the top 10 were also formerly Soviet republics.
Greco-Roman
Although 73 countries sent at least one wrestler to the championships, only 21 sent full squads of seven men, one for each weight division. And the top 12 team totals were from counties that sent full squads. In awarding team points, the gold medallist gets 10 points, the silver medallist 9 points and so forth down to the 10th ranked wrestler who gets one point.
Here are the top 12 Greco-Roman teams and their points:
Russia 41 points
Turkey 35
Iran 30
Belarus 25
Kazakhstan 23
Bulgaria 21
Azerbaijan 21
S. Korea 20
Armenia 19
Hungary 19
The United States ended up in 21st place with six points from one wrestler. Canada sent no one this year in Greco-Roman.
Here is how Iran’s seven wrestlers ended up:
Kg Name Rank Pts
120 Bashir Babajanzadeh 3 of 40 8
96 D. Rezaei – of 44 0
84 Habibollah Akhlaghi 26 of 47 0
74 Farshad Alizadeh 9 of 47 2
66 Saeed-Morad Abdvali 1 of 52 10
60 Omid Haji-Noroozi 1 of 42 10
55 M. Hajipour 22 of 37 0
In sum, four won points with three winning medals while the two others were far out of the money and Rezai at 96 kilos never had a chance after he pulled an Israeli opponent and had to withdraw under Iranian government rules. Rezai got a bye in the first round and drew Israeli Robert Avanesyan in the second round. So Rezaei never got into the wrestling circle. The Israeli ended up in 12th.
Freestyle
In freestyle wrestling, 80 countries sent at least one wrestler with 21 sending a full squad of seven wrestlers.
Here are the top 12 teams in freestyle and their points:
Russia 43
Iran 41
USA 38
Azerbaijan 37
Georgia 34
Kazakhstan 29
Japan 23
Belarus 22
Bulgaria 15
Turkey 13
Cuba 12
Ukraine 11
Canada sent a full squad of seven athletes but came away with no points.
Here are the results for Iran’s seven wrestlers:
Kg Name Rank Pts
120 Fardin Masoumi-Valadi 18 of 31 0
96 Reza Yazdani 1 of 41 10
84 Alireza Goudarzi 7 of 45 4
74 Sadegh-Saeed Goudarzi 2 of 45 9
66 Mehdi Taqavi 1 of 46 10
60 Mostafa Aghajaniozonbalagh 22 of 46 0
55 Hassan Rahimi 3 of 45 8
In sum, five won points with four winning medals while two others placed distantly.
Americans met Iranians in only three matches, all in freestyle. Iranians won one of those three matchups. Iranians and Canadians never faced each other.
