Russian Greco-Roman wrestlers performed unsuccessfully at the World Championships in Belgrade

Returning to the international arena, domestic wrestlers completed the World Championships in Belgrade with unusually modest results, by their own standards. They have only two golds, and both were won in the first half of the tournament by freestyle wrestlers. There was a serious failure in Greco-Roman wrestling. In this discipline, the Russians have only one bronze.

It was not difficult to guess what the reaction to the results of the Belgrade World Championship would be from the President of the Russian Wrestling Federation, Mikhail Mamiashvili, a maximalist accustomed to the fact that his sport is the sporting pride of the country. Commenting on them TASS, he said that “after a detailed analysis” “personnel decisions” would be made. And this is a completely natural reaction.

The Russian team at this championship, of course, was hampered by circumstances. Domestic wrestlers missed the entire last season and part of the current season due to sanctions. solutions United World Wrestling (UWW) about their return to top competition.

The break in international performances, performances at the elite level, with a colossal degree of resistance, of course, could not but affect the tone of the team.

But still, her indicators looked too modest compared to the usual ones.

Familiar ones are, for example, those who were at the last top tournaments with the participation of the Russian national team before its suspension, at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo and the world championship in Oslo. Both have four gold pieces. In Japan – eight medals in total, in Norway, with a program wider than the Olympic one – as many as 18. In Belgrade, Russian wrestlers received half a dozen awards – two of each merit. And this is an unattractive sixth place in the medal standings of the championship.

There is an important nuance. The Russian team did not fail in all genres. In men’s freestyle wrestling, despite the period of isolation, everything is still fine.

In it, despite the misfire of the brightest star – Abdulrashid Sadulayev, there were still two gold medals – Zaurbek Sidakov and Akhmed Usmanov, and Mamiashvili described the task facing the team as “almost completed”. But further failures followed. The women, and most importantly, the classics, remained silent, although they almost always stood on par with the freestyle wrestlers. In Greco-Roman wrestling, the Russian team was limited to bronze by Aues Gonibov, who also won in the non-Olympic category up to 82 kg. In the remaining nine there were no prizes, despite the fact that, for example, in Oslo in 2021 she had five finalists at once. Moreover, the athletes included in the roster were unable to book a single ticket to next year’s Paris Olympics, which Russia had not yet been deprived of: to do this, it was necessary to get into at least the top five of the final classification.

In Belgrade, there were cases when Russian Greco-Roman wrestlers were hampered by unpleasant accidents in the form of injuries or controversial refereeing. But still, absolutely objective lesions prevailed.

However, a reason not to worry too much about the fall of Belgrade is quickly found. In 2017, at the World Championships in Paris, the Russian classics, which at that time seemed like an outcome essentially unthinkable, were left without gold. In 2018, at the next world championship in Budapest, after adjustments were made to the preparations, they won as many as six victories.

Alexey Dospehov