Keshtkar, Dadmarz secure Greco-Roman spots at Wrestling Worlds
Iranian wrestlers Mohammad-Mahdi Keshtkar and Pouya Dadmarz defeated their domestic opponents at the World Championships trials in Tehran on Sunday as the country competed the 10-man Greco-Roman squad for September’s showpiece in Zagreb, Croatia.
A gold medalist in last December’s National Championships, Keshtkar, who also won a silver in February’s Ranking Series event, came out victorious in back-to-back encounters against former world champion Meysam Dalkhani in the 63kg showdown.
Keshtkar defeated Dalkhani 8-0 in the first bout and then repeated the superiority victory (12-3) over the Takhti Cup gold medalist to punch his ticket for the Croatian capital.
Reigning world silver medalist Dadmarz, meanwhile, defeated teenage prodigy Armin Shamsipour – a world under-17 champion last year – by a 4-1 scoreline to remain on course for a third successive world medal in the 55kg division.
Joining Keshtkar and Dadmarz in the Iranian Greco-Roman squad are Olympic champions Saied Esmaeili (67kg) and Mohammad-Hadi Saravi (97kg), plus world superheavyweight champion Amin Mirzazadeh (130kg), Ali Ahmadi-Vafa (60kg), Danial Sohrabi (72kg), Alireza Abdevali (77kg), Gholamreza Farrokhi (82kg), and Alireza Mohmmadi (87kg), who won an impressive silver medal in last year’s Paris Olympics.