#UWWAwards

'21 Breakthrough Performances of the Year: Geraei, Zare and Focken

Tuesday, December 7, 2021 - 12:23 By Eric Olanowski

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CORSIER-SUR-VEVEY, Switzerland (December 7) -- Mohammadreza GERAEI (IRI), Amir ZARE (IRI) and Aline FOCKEN (GER) have been named United World Wrestling’s Breakthrough Performance of the Year award winners.

Geraei came into 2021 without having a world or Olympic medal on his resume. The 25-year-old, known as ‘The Iceman,’ defied all expectations and claimed Olympic gold in Tokyo and closed out his improbable ’21 campaign with a world-title run in Oslo.

Zare, at just 20-year-old, had a colossal year. He collected an Olympic bronze medal in Tokyo before upsetting three-time world champ Geno PETRIASHVILI (GEO) and Olympic gold medalist Taha AKGUL (TUR) en route to gaining heavyweight supremacy at the Oslo World Championships.

Aline Focken picked the perfect time to retire. After missing out on the ’12 London Olympic Games and a ninth-place outing in Rio, the 12-year-veteran ended her career with an upset victory over five-time world champion Adeline GRAY (USA) in the 76kg Olympic finals.

#development

Wrestle4Fun Gets an Update

Saturday, July 15, 2023 - 10:36 By United World Wrestling Press

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(VEVEY, Switzerland) July 15 –- The Wrestle4Fun programme has recently been updated on the UWW Academy platform. Wrestle4Fun is a physical education based curriculum that includes many activities and games to introduce the sport of wrestling to children. The programme can be used in physical education classes at schools or at local clubs.   

Wrestle4Fun is developmentally appropriate for all age levels and designed to support girls’ and boys’ physical literacy journey.  Wrestle4Fun has 5-stages based on different developmental levels.  Each stage has 15 lessons.  In total, there are 75 lessons with over 200 games and activities.

“As part of UWW sustainable future for our community, it was our duty to provide a programme to introduce wrestling to children and youth. Wrestle4Fun is key and fundamental toolkit for schools and clubs to implement wrestling worldwide as we pursue the growth of our beloved sport.” – UWW President Nenad Lalovic

The entire Wrestle4Fun programme was updated on the Academy platform.  The recent updates included making the lessons online more user-friendly, adding videos of all the games and activities into the lessons, and downloadable PDF’s that include links to the videos.    

The UWW Academy can found at https://academy.uww.org/. The Academy is an online learning portal designed to provide information, tools and resources to support and develop wrestling.  To access all the content including the Wrestle4Fun programme, please go to the website and create your free account.