Wrestling UWW European Championships 2024 Road to Paris 2024

[Makedonas 1,585]

Bronze for our Maria Prevolaraki in the 53kg. This is now her 8th European Championships medal, and she also has 3 World Championships medals. Unfortunately none of these medals have been gold!

 

She said after Tokyo that she would go until Paris, so hopefully she can at least win an Olympic medal if she is going to end her career this year (would be her first Olympic medal).

[hckošice 13,267]

2 medals secured. Tajmuraz Salkazanov -74 and Boris Makoev -92 in the final

[zob79 124]

21 hours ago, avlar said:

A special momet in women wrestling final 65 kg.

Iryna Koliadenko won gold for  Ukraine and she beated another Ukrainian wrestler in the final.

Kateryna Zelenykh found a new home in Romania , her native city of Bakmut was totally destroyed by russians.

 

I watched the match from the stands; Koliadenko was better, no doubt about it. It's a special matchup, as you pointed out and maybe, someday, this will be the final of a more glamourous competition (WC/OG). Zelenykh is a gifted athlete and I think she has a big improvement potential. I didn't know her personal drama; can't really imagine what it feels like to know your world is shattered down by some lunatics. My heart goes out to her and hope that, at some point, she'll be able to fully heal her soul. Slava Ukraini!

Edited February 17 by zob79

[FeelingVeryOlympic 3]

I understand why she would have relocated to Romania, but why did Zelenykh switch her representation from Ukraine to Romania?

[avlar 133]

36 minutes ago, zob79 said:

I watched the match from the stands; Koliadenko was better, no doubt about it. It's a special matchup, as you pointed out and maybe, someday, this will be the final of a more glamourous competition (WC/OG). Zelenykh is a gifted athlete and I think she has a big improvement potential. I didn't know her personal drama; can't really imagine what it feels like to know your world is shattered down by some lunatics. My heart goes out to her and hope that, at some point, she'll be able to fully heal her soul. Slava Ukraini!

Herojam Slava! Thank you very much for your words and support (I know, Romania reacted immediately after the start of the war - crucial supprort, especially for the southern regions).

I hope to see Koliadenko and Zelenykh with the medals at the Olympics.

 

Romanian women team was impressive at the European Championships with Bronze medal in total. Ukraone got gold. I hope thses successes will be converted  into some olympic quotas in spring.

 

 

[avlar 133]

47 minutes ago, FeelingVeryOlympic said:

I understand why she would have relocated to Romania, but why did Zelenykh switch her representation from Ukraine to Romania?

It`s not an easy question. As far as I knew Ukrainian coach works with Romanian team so it could be one more important argument. 
But in general it should be addressed to the IOC mostly. It is a result of its policy to reduce costs reducing the number of athletes but not their "administrative expenses".

 

We have 10 weight classes in women wrestling and only 6 of them are olympic ones. Thus younger athletes from strong teams have very little chance to compete at the top international level right now. 65 kg is not Olympic weight, so the closest Olympic weight is 62 kg. Ukraine has Koliadenko and Tkach-Ostapchuk in this weight right now.

 

Thus if an athlete does not want to wait for his/her Olympic chance for years - the only way is to switch sport nationality. Of course it is a great chance to get/lose real diamond. And it happend in the past. Ukrainians won 4 medals for thir new countries at this Championships: Zelenykh (ROM), Stadnik and Kolesnik (AZE), Lysak (POL).

 

And wrestling is not the only case. Great example from canoe sprint.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canoeing_at_the_2016_Summer_Olympics_–_Men's_C-1_200_metres
 

4 Ukrainians in finals A and B at men`s canoe 200m:
 

1. Cheban

2. Demyaneko

6. Kraitor

12. Tarnovsky

 

At the 2024 Olympics men`s canoe sprint will have only 2(!!!) disciplines instead of 4 ones in Atlanta 1996.

 

Thus in general, the reason - is the IOC`s policy.

 

[Federer91 2,140]

Wrestling is the prime example of nation swapping. Like how many Russians we have in each weight, 40-50%... The rules are just to easy. If you want to jump hop nations there should be 5-6 year non-compete clause. 

[merlinsbeard 21]

2 minutes ago, Federer91 said:

Wrestling is the prime example of nation swapping. Like how many Russians we have in each weight, 40-50%... The rules are just to easy. If you want to jump hop nations there should be 5-6 year non-compete clause. 

Not even Russia, it seems like the half of semifinalists were from Daghestan. There must be limitations on this for sure, maybe giving permit for only one weight for each country 

Edited February 17 by merlinsbeard

[Makedonas 1,585]

Kougioumtsidis lost the bronze medal match 

 

He won gold in 2022 as a 20 yo, silver in 2023 as a 21 yo, now no medal as a 22 yo. I think his results are a bit misleading, he is still on a good path, I think he won gold too early and that maybe messed up the expectations for him.

[Makedonas 1,585]

Also we have Kurugliev in the 86kg final. He still doesn't have Greek citizenship though, so it's not certain if he'll be able to compete in Paris (assuming he qualifies). Honestly I don't have much interest in him, him competing for Greece just seems fake, I don't understand how people from other countries regularly celebrate these types of medals.

 

 

For me it just isn't the same feeling as when "one of our own" wins something. And btw I'm fine with people like Antetokounmpo, Gkolomeev, Tzengko who all lived in Greece either from birth or shortly after, it's just Kurugliev and Walkup in basketball who came recently, were never part of the Greek system, have no Greek ancestry, don't speak the language...