Asian Wrestling Championships:
Firouzpour, Zare’ grab golds as Iran reclaims freestyle title
Five gold medals and three bronzes across 10 weight classes saw Iran lift the freestyle trophy at the Asian Wrestling Championships in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
Having seen a run of four successive titles come to an end by Kazakhstan last year, Mohsen Kaveh’s squad tallied 190 points to finish above Japan (130 points) and the host country (121 points) in the team table.
On Friday, reigning world superheavyweight champion Amirhossein Zare’ brought the curtain down on a glorious campaign for Iran by easing to a 11-0 technical fall victory over home-favorite Aiaal Lazarev with 32 seconds left on the clock in the 125kg final – a first Asian title for the 23-year-old Iranian, who has double world golds and a bronze under his belt as well as a bronze at the Tokyo Olympics.
Zare’ proved to be in a league of his own in the Kyrgyz capital as he scored 26 points without giving away a single point across the three bouts and showcased his dazzling form with less than four months to go until the Paris Olympics.
“This was my last competition before the Olympics and I needed the ranking points for the event, not to mention the Asian medal is precious for my country so I’m so grateful that I will not leave empty-handed,” said a humble Zare’, who also won the gold at last year’s Asian Games as well as the Zagreb Open Ranking Series event in January.
Meanwhile, Amirhossein Firouzpour, a four-time world gold medalist in three age groups, won his second Asian senior gold in emphatic fashion by outmuscling Uzbekistan’s Sherzod Poyonov 8-3 – following three technical-fall victories en route to the 92kg final showpiece.
Firouzpour scored three stepouts in the first period, while giving up one himself, and then added three more in the second before finally scoring a takedown off an underhook. Poyonov scored a takedown in the closing seconds.
Elsewhere, Hadi Vafaeipour bounced back from a last-eight defeat against two-time world bronze medalist Azamat Dauletbekov of Kazakhstan to beat China’s Li Peilong 10-0 for a consolation bronze at the 86kg contests – alongside Tatsuya Shirai of Japan – though his failure to win the gold will virtually mean the end his quest for a shot at the Olympic berth against Iranian sensation Hassan Yazdani.
Dauletbekov went on to defeat Uzbekistan’s Javrail Shapiev 5-2 in the final for his third Asian gold in a row.
Hossein Abouzari added another bronze to Iran’s medal haul, courtesy of a 5-2 win against Kazakhstan’s Syrbaz Talgat in the 74kg weight class.
Japanese wrestler Kota Takahashi, victorious over Abouzari in the semifinals, came out on top against Viktor Rassadin of Tajikistan in the final.
Friday’s results came after the Iranians had won three golds and a bronze on the preceding night in Bishkek.
In a repeat of last year’s 65kg final, former world champion Rahman Amouzad defeated Tulga Tumur Ochir to walk away with a second consecutive Asian gold, while making amends for his setback against the Mongolian in the Asian Games final last October.
Two-time world silver medalist Amir-Mohammad Yazdani picked up the first gold in his senior career thanks to a 13-9 triumph over world under-23 silver medalist Yoshinosuke Aoyagi of Japan in a thrilling 70kg showpiece, while Mohammad Nokhodi, winner of back-to-back world silvers before a bronze in Belgrade last year, made a light work of Mongolia’s Byambadorj Enkhbayar with a 12-2 technical fall in the 79kg final.
Two-time Asian champion Mohammad-Hossein Mohammadian recovered from an 8-2 defeat against world champion Akhmed Tazhudinov of Bahrain in the semifinals to beat Japanese Hibiki Ito in the bronze medal contest of the 97kg event.