November 19, 2021
Iranian wrestlers had one of their best years at the 2021 World Championships, coming in second (to Russia) in Greco-Roman and third (to Russia and the US) in Freestyle.
An astounding half of all the Iranian wrestlers reached the gold medal rounds.
In Freestyle, Russia, the US and Iran were dominant. They were bunched close together in terms of team points (173, 168 and 162) while fourth place Georgia with 68 points didn’t even have half the number of points of third place Iran.
In point totals in Greco-Roman, Russia and Iran were dominant, although not as dominant as in Freestyle. Russia had 152 points and Iran was close behind with 146 points, while third place Azerbaijan was far back with 107 points and fourth place Georgia had 92.
In recent years, Iran has been doing much better in Greco-Roman competitions, a sport in which it used to trail. This year, it pulled down an amazing four golds in the 10 weight divisions; no other country got more than one gold medal in Greco-Roman. The reason the Russians out-pointed Iran was because they got four silvers and two bronze medals, while Iran got no silvers and two bronze medals.
In Freestyle, Iran and the United States tied at the top of the medal table with three golds, three silvers and one bronze each. Russia outpointed both countries, however, because it had more grapplers in the top 10, even though they didn’t win medals. Under United World Wrestling’s new point system, the top 10 wrestlers in each weight division score points. First place earns 25 points, silver earns 20 and bronze wins 15. The two losers in the two bronze medals rounds earn 10 points each. Seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th places earn eight, six, four and two points.
This year’s World Championships saw 66 countries enter a total of 650 wrestlers. Few countries, however, entered competitors in all or even most of the 10 weight divisions of Freestyle and Greco-Roman. Iran was one of the handful that did but it sent no competitors in women’s wrestling.
Among the noteworthy outcomes at the World Championships, Hassan Yazdani beat American David Taylor to win gold at 86 kilos Freestyle. Taylor beat Yazdani a few weeks earlier to win the Olympic gold. Another noteworthy match was at 79 kilos Freestyle where American Jordan Burroughs yet again won gold, this time beating Iranian Mohammad-Asghar Nokhodi in the gold medal round.
Of the 20 wrestlers Iran sent to the World Championships in Oslo, an impressive 10 reached the gold medal rounds. In those matches, three defeated Russians and one lost to a Russian, one defeated an American and two lost to Americans, two defeated Georgians and one defeated a Hungarian.
Here are the results for the 20 Iranian wrestlers.
FREESTYLE
57 kg – Ali-Reza Sarlak 2nd
61 kg – Rahman Amouzad 11th
65 kg – Amir Yazdani 2nd
70 kg – Erfan Elahi 8th
74 kg – Younes Emami 8th
79 kg – Asghar Nokhodi 2nd
86 kg – Hassan Yazdani 1st
92 kg – K. Ghasempour 1st
97 kg – Mojtaba Gholeij 3rd
125 kg – Amir Zare 1st
In Freestyle, seven of the 10 won medals, while another two scored points and only a single competitor ended below 10th place.
GRECO-ROMAN
55 kg – Sajjad Abbaspour 11th
60 kg – Mehrdad Mardani 8th
63 kg – Meysam Delkhani 1st
67 kg – Moh.-Reza Geraei 1st
72 kg – M.-Reza Mokhtari 5th
77 kg – Moh.-Ali Geraei 3rd
82 kg – Pejman Poshtam 3rd
87 kg – Ramin Taheri 13th
97 kg – Moh.-Hadi Saravi 1st
130 kg – Ali-Akbar Yousofi 1st
In Greco-Roman, seven of the 10 reached the medal rounds (though one did not win a medal), one other scored points and two ended below 10th place.