Golden hat trick. Abubakar Haslakhanov – world champion wrestling among athletes under 23 years old

Belarusian triumph in American Las Vegas! Abubakar Haslakhanov became the world champion in wrestling among athletes under the age of 23. Equal was not our representative of the Greco-Roman style in the weight category up to 97 kg.

At the world championship held in Las Vegas, Abubakar in the first round did not leave a chance to the Turk Muhittin Helvaji - 9: 0. In the second match, he defeated the Japanese Sorato Kanazawa dryly - 8: 0. In the quarterfinals was stronger than Russian Magomed Mukhtarov – 4: 1. And in the fight for reaching the final, the Belarusian coped with the German Darius Kiefer with a score of 5: 1. However, the decisive match was much more difficult for Abubakar. His rival is Ukrainian Yegor Yakushenko, who has won 42 victories in one defeat over the past two years. In March of this year, the athletes have already met in the final of the European Youth Championship in the Serbian Zrenjanin. Then in a stubborn struggle, the opponent celebrated Victoria with a score of 3: 1. And now in the new fight, the advantage was again on the side of Yakushenko. At the end of the first segment, the Belarusian was inferior - 0: 1. However, after the break, he managed not only to equalize the score, but also to change the course of the match. Two minutes before the end, the scoreboard already burned numbers 2: 1 in favor of Abubakar. They did not change, although the fight remained extremely intense until the last seconds. But our athlete survived and won. After the final whistle, both wrestlers could not get off the carpet for a long time - a vivid testament to how hard each of them was given this final.

Abubakar was completely laid out on the carpet, so there was no strength left for the stormy celebration. Nevertheless, our champion found the energy for the traditional lap of honour with the national flag in his hands. He was joined by coaches Kirill Fomenko and Viktor Sosunovskiy, who played an important role in this triumph.

After such a long-awaited and difficult victory, Haslakhanov said:

- I really missed those emotions. It's been a long time since I last won a final, so I'm incredibly happy. Words cannot describe how great it is when all your hard work pays off. Yakushenko is a very difficult opponent for me because of his physique. He's tall and very large. I'm not small, but he's twice as big as me. This time the first period didn't go quite well, so during the break we had to change tactics a bit and it worked. That's not what I'm used to, though. I usually work on the same plan, but this time the coach and I made the right decision at the right time. I struggled with my opponent’s hand and that’s how I started the first period. In the second period, we decided to work under his hand. I guess that made him uncomfortable, and that’s how I won.

This gold medal of Haslakhanov can rightly be called historical. Abubakar became the first Greco-Roman wrestler in Belarus, who managed to rise to the highest level of the podium in all age categories at the world championships. The beginning of this “golden hat-trick” was laid in 2021, when he won the world championship among young men. In 2023, the collection was replenished with gold of the junior championship of the planet. Now the Belarusian has success at the youth championship.

At the same time, at the age of 22, Abubakar also managed to perform at the Olympic Games in Paris, where he took seventh place, and won the bronze of the adult European Championship.

rudnik@sb.by