Award Season

2017 Women's Freestyle Matches of the Year

Sunday, December 31, 2017 - 19:29 By Eric Olanowski

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The best women’s wrestling matches of the year included two match-ups that pegged previous age-level and senior world champions against each other. The third match featured an ending with quite the proposal.

53kg World Championships GOLD: Vanesa KALADZINSKAYA (BLR) v. Mayu MUKAIDA (JPN)
Vanesa Kaldzinskaya showed no sign of panicking in the 53kg world finals, even while trailing 6-0. The 2012 world champion used a step out late in the first period to narrow Mukaida’s lead to five points. Her resilience was apparent throughout the match and eventually paid off with 10 seconds remaining as Kaldzinskaya’s four-point move gave her the 8-6 win.

75kg World Championships GOLD: Yasemin ADAR (TUR) v. Vasilisa MARZALIUK (BLR)
After picking up the first takedown, five-time world team member Yasemin Adar trailed on criteria heading into the second period. With under a minute to go, Adar used a late takedown to take the 4-4 lead on criteria. Adar tacked on one more point and won 5-4.

After Adar’s gold medal celebration, her boyfriend came on the mat, dropped to one knee and proposed to Yasemin.

63kg World Championships GOLD: Orkhon PUREVDORJ (MGL) v. Yuliia TKACH OSTAPCHUK (UKR)
In a battle of junior world champions, Orkhon Purevdorj needed three takedowns to defeat Yuliia Tkach Ostapchuk. Purevdorj picked up an early takedown in the first and led 2-1 after three minutes of action. Tkach Ostapchuk answered in the second period with a takedown of her own, but it was Purevdorj’s two second-period takedowns that gave her the 6-3 victory.

#development

UWW Educators Attend Special NCDA Cohort at NSSU

Friday, May 1, 2026 - 09:09 By United World Wrestling Press

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TOKYO (April 24) -- United World Wrestling's Development Officer Vicent AKA and Education Manager Zach ERRETT recently completed Cohort 9 for the National Coach Developer Academy [NCDA] at the Nippon Sport Science University in Tokyo, Japan.

The NCDA is programme that runs over seven months and includes two sessions at Nippon Sports Science University working with experts in coaching development. It is designed to help participants learn strategies for how to develop and train coaches [train the trainer].

NSSU conducts the programme, that helps train coach developers for different sports and organizations, in partnership with International Council for Coaching Excellence [ICCE] which was created in 1997.

DevelopmentUWW Educators Vincent AKA, left, and Zach ERRETT.

Both Aka and Errett participated with 13 other participants from around the world and different sports. During the programme, both improved their facilitation skills, learned new strategies for training and developing coaches, and designed and implemented a growth development project.

"The training was very interesting and allowed us to grow as a person and ideas for how to organize our system. We were able to learn something we would directly use and to learn from experts in the field," Aka said.

Errett said that the education he received at the NCDA will help them train coaches and educators better in wrestling.

"We had an opportunity to learn from experts in the field of coach development and learn from colleagues around the world," Errett said. "We can use this information to help better train coaches and educators in the future."

Cohort 10, the next edition of the programme, will be attended by UWW Educator Oyan NAZARIANI.

“I am honored to be selected for the NCDA programme," Nazariani said. "At this stage of my career, my focus is on developing structured and sustainable coach education systems. I am particularly excited to deepen my knowledge as a coach developer, strengthen the programme we plan to implement in Azerbaijan, and apply advanced methodologies both in national coaching courses and in international courses I conduct as a UWW Educator across different countries."