Satisfaction

With a total of 30 countries presenting 175 men and 55 women wrestlers, the organizers could be pleased with this edition.
Wrestling got off to a difficult start, but it seems to be back on track now that many of our Member Associations have shown such a lively interest in organizing this championship in their countries. In 2000, the wrestlers went to Japan, in 2002, with the ladies for the first time, they met in Edmonton, Canada. And finally, in 2000 the Polish town of Lodz hosted the tournament.
 

You may also remember that wrestling was on the last Universiade programme in Izmir, Turkey in August 2005. So Turkey came to this event with the legitimate ambition of taking home a pocket full of medals, as did the other countries that are traditionally strong in the discipline – the United States, Russia, Iran. For the women, Japan, Canada and the Ukraine brought great champions. In fact, in the opinion of our technical delegate for wrestling, Mr. Akhbar Iranmanesh (IRI): "We attended the most challenging and the best tournament in recent years. Given the quantity and the quality of the participants, we reached the level of an International Amateur Wrestling Federation (FILA) World Championship."  

Mr. Iranmanesh also underlined the difference between the wrestling tournament at the Universiade and the one held for the World University Championships (WUC) every other year: of course, at the Universiade, there are more participants, about three times as many, but the fact that wrestling is on the Universiade programme is also a great promotion for the sport, which is all to the advantage of the future WUC.

So the town of Ulaanbaatar hosted the seventh edition of the World University Wrestling Championships in June this year. The town has a long background in organizing wrestling competitions, since it has regularly held the Asian championships since 1973 and the international freestyle event "Mongol Gobi" every year since 1972. It also had great success with the world chess championship organized in 2000.  

With a total of 30 countries presenting 175 men and 55 women wrestlers (a new WUC record), the organizers could be satisfied with this edition. Again wrestling proved just how attractive a sport it is.  

An Exceptional Welcome
This championship was part of the celebration of the 800th anniversary of the creation of the state of Mongolia, as emphasized by the President of the Mongolian Olympic Committee, Mr. Demchgjav Zagdsuren in his welcoming address to the participants. He also stressed the excellent collaboration between the government in his country and the national University Sports Federation that worked together to set up the tournament. Finally, the same opening ceremony recognized a number of world-class athletes and their great performances at FISU Universiades and Championships.  

Freestyle
Wrestling, particularly freestyle, is a very popular sport in Mongolia, which boasts a large number of participants, so it was not surprising to find Mongolian athletes on almost all the podiums, particularly for the ladies – only two Japanese wrestlers managed to keep them from the gold medal. Canada and Poland also showed very good results. For the men, Mongolia and Iran split the gold medals. Russia and China were just a step below.

Note that all of the fights, in both freestyle and Greco-Roman style, were broadcast live on a major national television channel.  

Greco-Roman Wrestling
Turkey is traditionally very strong in this category, and once again it proved up to its reputation by taking three gold medals and one bronze (men and women together). Iran also did very well with one gold and four silver medals. Mongolia, Korea and the United States also showed very good performances. 

Disappointment
Unfortunately, our federation is not free from doping, and we found that gold-medal winning athletes had taken illicit substances in the men's 120 kg (Greco-Roman) and men's 55kg (freestyle) categories. The two wrestlers, Alizera Gharibi (IRN) and Alexei Zudaev (RUS) were declared forfeit and their files were sent to FILA.  

Results