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‘I was destroyed’: Qassempour on painful loss to Sadulaev at World Championships
Kamran Qassempour stares at the empty walls of the interview room as he recalls the heartbreaking and shocking 5-3 loss to Abdulrashid Sadulaev in the semifinal of the World Championships last October.
The images of Qassempour holding his head in hands after the loss went viral on social media. Sadulaev was praised for his champion mindset and his ability to script a remarkable late turnaround. Qassempour was consoled by his fans, who urged him to not lose heart.
Those comforting words felt hollow at that point and Qassempour felt “lost.”
“The reality is that the fighting spirit and the feeling I had on the first day of the competition caused all those feelings to disappear and I was destroyed. I couldn’t control myself and I just wanted the competition to end and go back,” Qassempour says, with his voice breaking as he recollects his thoughts.
For five minutes and 55 seconds, Qassempour controlled the 92kg semifinal against Sadulaev, a two-time Olympic champion known for his must-win attitude. A loss would have reinforced the belief that the Sauldaev aura was fading. A win for Qassempour, a two-time world champion at 92kg, would make him only the third wrestler to beat Sadulaev.
But with five seconds remaining, Sadulaev snapped the Iranian down, spun behind, then managed to fling him to the mat for a 4-point takedown.
“It was also very difficult for me to come to terms with the loss,” Qassempour recalls. “After the match, I felt very bad and didn’t sleep all night. I was awake from the intensity of thought and pressure, and it was very difficult for me. Due to the pressure I was under, I took four painkillers after the match.”
A few hours of sleep was never going to be enough for Qassempour to return for his bronze-medal bout against American David Taylor, which he lost 6-2.
Four months have passed since that day in Tirana, a city Qassempour returned for the Muhamet Malo Ranking Series last week and captured the gold medal. Though not the World Championships and there was no Sadulaev in the field, Qassempour managed to bring a smile on his face as he stood on the podium.
However, memories flashed back.
“When I was going up to the podium [after winning gold], I thought again that I could have been standing on the Worlds podium a few months ago, not this tournament,” he said. “But that’s how sports are, and if professional athletes want to continue their path, they must know that winning and losing are part of sports.”
Qassempour did take comfort from the messages he received. Yet, he is unable to move on from those five seconds of lapse in concentration.
“People gave me a lot of good energy and praised me constantly, which shows the kindness of the people,” he says. “But what I wanted didn’t happen and the result wasn’t as I wanted. It would have been better if it ended with a good result.”
As the new Olympic cycle begins, Qassempour wants to make amends. There will be many pit stops before he can be at his first Olympics and he wants to capture every gold medal that comes his way.
“There are three more World Championships left before the Olympics [in 2028],” he says. “The World Championships are very important to me, and after that, it’s the Olympic medal that I want to have in my medal showcase. In the year leading up to the Olympics, I will make the decision and compete in a weight class so that I can participate in the Olympics.”