Obituary

Olympic champion Tediashvili passes away at 75

Tuesday, February 20, 2024 - 16:45 By United World Wrestling Press

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CORSIER-SUR-VEVEY, Switzerland (February 19) -- Two-time Olympic champion and United World Wrestling Hall of Fame wrestler Levan TEDIASHVILI passed away on Saturday. He was 75 years old.

Tediashvili won the Freestyle gold medal at the 1972 Munich Olympics and repeated as the Olympic champion at the 1976 Montreal Games. The two Olympic gold medals were won in 82kg and 90kg weight classes respectively.

Born on March 15, 1948, Tediashvili was a four-time world champion, winning the gold medal in 1971, 1973, 1974 and 1975. His world title and two Olympic medals resulted in him remaining unbeaten internationally from 1971 to 1977.

Levan TEDIASHVILI
Levan TEDIASHVILI

In 1978, he jumped to the 100kg weight class and won a silver medal at the World Championships that year. He also won European titles three times.

Georgia awarded him with Vakhtang Gorgasali First Degree Medal and the title of Honorary Citizen of Tbilisi. The wrestling legend was inducted into the UWW Hall of Fame in 2005. He also acted in awarded winning films including Brighton 4th.

UWW mourns the passing of Tediashvili and expresses its deepest sympathies to the Tediashvili family.

African Champion Kleinjan Combrinck, 23, Has Died

Wednesday, June 13, 2018 - 19:43 By Eric Olanowski

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CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Kleinjan COMBRINCK, 2018 African Champion in freestyle wrestling at 57kg, died Sunday morning in a car accident near his home in South Africa.

Combrinck, 23, recently represented South Africa at the 2018 Commonwealth Games where he took fifth-place. Ranked as high as 12th in the world, Combrinck’s next competition was expected to be the 2018 U23 World Championships in Bucharest, Romania.

Michael GAITSKILL, who also competed on South Africa’s 2018 Commonwealth Games team was in the car with Combrinck and in is the intensive care unit in critical condition.

In a statement released by SASCOC, South Africa’s umbrella sports body, President Gideon Sam said, “The loss of Kleinjan and the serious injury to Michael rocks the very heart of the SA sporting family. Both these two fine men were excellent wrestlers and also brilliant ambassadors for South African sport on the international front.”