These days the World Wrestling Championship is being held in Belgrade. And what is fundamentally important is that there will be competition for Olympic licenses. And our boys are there. Turns out it was possible! After all, the IOC does not deny our athletes the opportunity to qualify for and participate in the Games. But before we glorify Thomas Bach, let’s figure out how this is supposed to work.
On the one hand, the International Olympic Committee does not prevent our athletes from participating in qualification tournaments and world championships. On the other hand… And on the other hand, our athletes simply do not receive visas for the countries where these qualifying competitions are held (yes, the title of world champion becomes an accompaniment). Convenient position, right?
And then the World Championships took place in Belgrade. Serbian authorities, without a doubt, issued visas to Russian freestyle wrestlers to visit their sister country. And so our best athletes fight for the right to obtain Olympic licenses. And no one can stop us from doing this.
***Spoiler: maybe. France may not issue visas to our Olympic athletes and that’s it.
But the Olympic Games will be held in the summer of 2024. By then, the situation in the world may change, the world may become different. Therefore, we must go and fight for the right to compete in what remains the main competition of each athlete. And our guys are fighting. With varying degrees of success. Abdulrashid “Tank” Sadulaev made it through the quarterfinals on edge, then lost to his former comrade, who now plays in Bahrain.
And our legend did not have to endure what happened to Akhmed Usmanov. The Russian defeated the Georgian Vladimir Gamkrelidze in the final fight in the category up to 79 kg by 4:1. An Olympic license is not required for this weight, but we’re not talking about that right now.
International Wrestling Federation
Ahmed deserved the championship podium. But he didn’t deserve what we all saw during the awards ceremony. It is to be hoped that the Ukrainian, who lost to the Russian in the semi-finals, did not congratulate the champion. One would expect to see a banner in which, according to tradition, the Olympic rings appear on a white background, as happened in the last three Games…
But under the arches of the Belgrade palace an absolutely white flag was raised. Perfect white. At all times, a flag like that, a sheet, a t-shirt on a stick… meant surrender. Usmanov’s face was stony. Literally. The symbolism didn’t work. For Ahmed, this white banner became a blank slate on which he would draw more than one winning combination. There is no irony here. We need to win and write a new story on all these snow white sheets.
Fantastic rescue of Sadulayev. The Russian fighter achieved victory with 5 seconds left in the fight.
