Wrestling U20 World Championships:
Khorramdel grabs gold as Iran collects three FS medals
Ali Khorramdel won the 65kg gold at the Wrestling U20 World Championships on Saturday as Iran bagged three freestyle medals across five weight classes in Pontevedra, Spain.
A bronze medalist in last year’s 61kg contests of the U20 Worlds, Khorramdel cruised to the ultimate prize this time around thanks to a 10-2 victory over Makoto Hosokawa of Japan.
Despite the emphatic triumph over the Japanese, the Iranian – also the reigning Asian under-20 champion – had a difficult path toward the final showdown as he had to come from behind to edge out Turkey’s Abdullah Toprak 12-11 in a thrilling opener.
Khorramdel then fought hard to defeat Aykhan Abdullazada of Azerbaijan 9-6 before hanging on to beat Russian Adam Arkhiev, participating as a neutral athlete, 6-4 in the semifinals.
Elsewhere, Ali Karampour and Mahdi Yousefi finished their campaigns with two bronze medals in their respective classes.
Representing the country in the 70kg class, Karampour bounced back from a 13-2 defeat against Japan’s Ryoya Yamashita to outmuscle Georgian Goga Otinashvili via fall and share the third podium with American Peter Duke.
Yousefi, meanwhile, fell to a technical fall defeat to eventual gold medalist Alp Begenjov in the first round but still managed to make it to the third-place bout, where he came out on top against Indian Amit Amit 13-2 for a consolation bronze.
Saturday’s results came after the Iranian 10-man squad had dominated the Greco-Roman competitions last week in Pontevedra.
Ali Ahmadi Vafa (55kg), Mohammad-Mahdi Gholampour (60kg), Ahmadreza Mohsennejad (67kg), and Alireza Abdevali (77kg) pocketed four golds, while Abolfazl Fat’hi took the 130kg silver and Erfan Jarkani won a 63kg bronze, as Iran tallied 147 points for a fifth world under-20 title in a row, with Kazakhstan (100pts) and Turkey (98pts) in the following spots.