Tokyo 2020

Trio of Olympic Licenses Reassigned After Anti-Doping Rules Violations

By United World Wrestling Press

CORSIER-SUR-VEVEY, Switzerland (February 19) – United World Wrestling this week confirmed that three wrestlers from the 2019 Senior Wrestling World Championships in Nur-Sultan have had their results disqualified following Anti-Doping Rules Violations.

Following Doping Controls and the results management conducted by the International Testing Agency (“ITA”) on behalf of United World Wrestling, the Anti-doping Rules Violations for the presence of prohibited substances have been established against Freestyle wrestlers Zelimkhan KHADJIEV (FRA, 74), Badkha KHUTABA (SYR, 125), and Khasanboy RAKHIMOV (UZB, 125), resulting in the automatic disqualification of the results, and as a consequence in their nation's Olympic licenses reassigned. Disciplinary proceedings, handled independently the ITA, are still pending to determine the sanctions on the athletes.

The new Olympic licenses have been awarded to the nations of the next highest-ranked wrestlers at 74kg (Poland) and 125kg (Iran, Kosovo). The national federations of France (74kg), Uzbekistan (125kg), and Syria (125kg) will be allowed to enter competitors at their respective Olympic qualifiers in March.

74kg – Kamil RYBICKI (POL)

1. RUS
2. ITA
3. USA
3. KAZ
5. JPN
6. POL

125kg – Egzon SHALA (KOS) + Yadollah MOHEBI (IRI)

1. GEO
2. TUR
3. UKR
3. CHN
5. KOS
6. IRI

The United World Wrestling website has updated brackets and results from the 2019 Senior Wrestling World Championships as well as the new allocations for Olympic licenses in each weight category. 

#WrestleAlexandria

WATCH: 10 freestyle finals from Ibrahim Moustafa

By Vinay Siwach

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (March 2) -- The Ibrahim Moustafa Ranking Series closed off with freestyle. The gold medal bouts in Alexandria were nothing short of thrilling with gold medals to Turkey, the USA, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Romania, Georgia, Ukraine and Slovakia.

Here are the 10 gold medal bouts from the second Ranking Series event of the year.

GOLD: 57kg - Suleyman ATLI (TUR) vs. Andrii YATSENKO (UKR) 

Semifinal: 74kg - Iakub SHIKHDZHAMALOV (ROU) vs. Soner DEMIRTAS (TUR) [The at 74kg did not take place after Vincenzo JOSEPH (USA) got injured]