Wrestling World Championships:
Hedayati, Sohrabi strike gold as Iran clinches Greco-Roman crown
Fardin Hedayati and Danial Sohrabi added two more gold medals to Iran’s haul to help the country claim a second successive Greco-Roman team title at the Wrestling World Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Monday. Mohammad-Hadi Saravi, meanwhile, secured a consolation bronze in the 97kg class, while Saeid Esmaeili and Alireza Mohmadi reached the finals in their respective weight classes. Head coach Hassan Rangraz’s squad secured nine medals across 10 weight classes to defend its crown with one day to spare in the Greco-Roman competition.
Superheavyweight dominance
Perhaps the toughest test Hedayati faced on his path to the 130kg gold medal in his senior World Championships debut came four months earlier and more than 2,600 kilometers away.
That was when he defeated reigning world champion and compatriot Amin Mirzazadeh in a domestic trial to secure his place on Iran’s team for the global showpiece.
With Mirzazadeh absent, Hedayati ensured Iran maintained its dominance in the superheavyweight division with a quicksilver 8-0 rout of Hungary’s Darius Vitek in the final at Astana’s Barys Arena.
“To win the most precious medal, the gold, in my very first senior World Championships is incredible, and it brings me such joy to make my fellow countrymen happy,” Hedayati said. “Seeing my dear compatriots happy means the world to me. It’s worth even more than a world or Olympic gold medal.”
Nothing better illustrated Iran’s dominance than the emphatic fashion in which Hedayati swept aside his opponents en route to adding senior world gold to his world U20 title in 2023 and world U23 crowns in 2024 and 2025.
Hedayati won four of his five matches by technical superiority, while the other ended in an injury default after just 11 seconds. He did not concede a single point and finished all five bouts in the first period. His total time on the mat was 7:09, barely more than the length of a single match.
In the final, Hedayati kept the pressure on Vitek, rapidly stringing together a series of point-scoring moves. A stepout was followed by a takedown, a two-point tilt and a gut wrench to give him a 7-0 lead before either wrestler could break a sweat. The stepout that clinched the gold came just 42 seconds into the bout.
To reach the top in Astana, Hedayati first had to overcome two-time world champion and Paris Olympic bronze medalist Mirzazadeh, who defeated Vitek 7-2 to win world gold last year.
“Hedayati is more explosive,” Vitek said when asked to compare the two Iranian champions. “I tried to prepare for this, but he was better.”
In the team-selection playoff in June in Kerman, Iran, Hedayati got the better of Mirzazadeh with a 5-1 victory in the first bout of what was supposed to be a best-of-three series. Mirzazadeh opted to forgo the remaining matches, symbolically handing the baton to Hedayati.
Whether he can ever reclaim his place remains to be seen. Emboldened by his triumph, Hedayati is determined to put in the hard work required to achieve even greater success.
“Wrestling is a sport where there are no fixed limits or records,” Hedayati said. “My task has become harder today compared to yesterday.
“I didn’t have a senior world championships gold medal, but now I’ve secured one. It’s going to require a tremendous amount of effort. From this point forward, I am fully committed to continuing on this path, with the aim of winning multiple world and Olympic medals, all through hard work and dedication.”
Relief for Sohrabi
Sohrabi ground out a 4-0 victory over Hungary’s Krisztian Vancza in the final to add the world title to his Asian gold from 2025.
Monday’s triumph also came as a relief for the Iranian, who had to settle for bronze at last year’s edition after a controversial quarterfinal defeat to France’s Ibrahim Ghanem.
Sohrabi, who suffered multiple bleeding stoppages against the Frenchman, was timed out when the four minutes allotted for medical treatment expired. Ghanem, who was leading 4-2, was then declared the winner.
“Over the past year, the only thing on my mind was winning the world gold medal,” Sohrabi said. “Every single day, I would write down: ‘I must win the world gold medal.’ I wrote it down every single day.
“Thankfully, through the kind prayers of the people, I was able to win the gold and bring happiness to my dear fellow countrymen.”
Sohrabi had the first and only par terre opportunity of the match but was unable to turn Vancza. He did, however, force a stepout to take a 2-0 lead into the break.
In the second period, Sohrabi charged in for a bear hug before maneuvering Vancza onto the mat for a takedown that completed the scoring.
In the 97kg class, defending champion Saravi bounced back from a semifinal defeat to Russia’s Artur Sargsian — his first international loss since the 2023 World Championships semifinals, ending a 30-match winning streak for the two-time Olympic medalist — to beat Sweden’s Alex Kessidis 3-0 for the fifth world medal of his career.
The decorated Iranian combined a passivity point in the first period with a go-behind takedown in the second to overcome the veteran Swede and add to his world gold medals from 2021 and 2025 and bronze from 2023.
Earlier in the day, Saeid Esmaeili, also a gold medalist at the Paris Olympics, remained on course for a second consecutive world title by reaching the 67kg final.
Esmaeili got the better of Hasrat Jafarov in the semifinals, winning 1-1 on criteria to record his third victory over the familiar Azerbaijani rival in as many meetings over the past 12 months. Esmaeili was awarded the par terre position in the first period but failed to break through Jafarov’s defense, taking a 1-0 lead into the break. Jafarov was awarded the par terre position in the second period but also failed to score.
At 87kg, Mohmadi, a silver medalist last year, dominated Armenia’s Gevorg Tadevosyan 10-1 in the semifinals to set up a rematch of the 2024 Paris Olympic final against Ukraine’s Semen Novikov, who won that bout.