#WrestleZagreb

WATCH: 10 Zagreb Open freestyle finals

By Eric Olanowski

ZAGREB, Croatia (February 8) -- The first Ranking Series event of the season, the Zagreb Open, just wrapped up in the Croatian capital. Wrestlers used the point-based competition to earn points towards their seeds at the five Continental Championships and Belgrade World Championships.

The United States topped the team standings with 174 points, while Iran and Azerbaijan rounded out the top three.

The Stars and Stripes had wrestlers win medals in seven of ten weight classes--including gold-medal performances from Alec William PANTALEO (USA)Jason Michael NOLF (USA)Kollin Raymond MOORE (USA) and Kyle Frederick SNYDER (USA) at 70kg, 74kg, 92kg and 97kg, respectively.

Iran finished in second place with 140 points, 34 points behind the United States, thanks to bracket winners Reza Ahmadali ATRINAGHARCHI (IRI)Ali Bakhtiar SAVADKOUHI (IRI),  Hassan Aliazam YAZDANICHARATI (IRI) and Amir Hossein Abbas ZARE (IRI).

Aliabbas RZAZADE (AZE) won gold at 57kg and helped Azerbaijan close out the competition in the third position. They had seven medalists--one gold, two silver and four bronze medals--and finished with 135 points.

Here are the 10 freestyle finals from Zagreb.

57kg Aliabbas RZAZADE (AZE) df. Yuto NISHIUCHI (JPN), 2-0

CAS imposes four-year ban on Gadisov

By United World Wrestling Press

CORSIER-SUR-VEVEY, Switzerland (September 27) -- The Court of Arbitration for Sport has imposed a four-year suspension on former world champion Abdusalam GADISOV for a sample collected on August 6, 2015.

Gadisov, who won the gold medal at the 2014 World Championship, was subjected to an out-of-competition test. The sample was initially reported negative by the Moscow lab but it was kept for long-term storage.

On a re-analysis by the Lausanne lab in April 2020, it returned with an adverse analytical finding for dehydrochloromethyltestosterone, an anabolic-androgenic steroid prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

The RUSADA ‘Disciplinary Anti-Doping Committee’ declared a decision on May 27, 2021 that the wrestler had not committed a doping violation. WADA and RUSADA appealed this decision to CAS.

The CAS heard the matter and decided that the wrestler had committed a doping violation and all the results of Gadisov from August 6, 2015 till August 5, 2019 must be disqualified including the silver medal he won at the 2015 World Championships in Las Vegas.

Abdusalam Gadisov has appealed against CAS’s decision to the Swiss Federal Tribunal.