WRESTLING – Bahrain was announced last night as the host of the 2026 edition of the Senior World Championships in wrestling.
The kingdom will be staging United World Wrestling’s (UWW) annual showpiece event for the first time in its history. It will be taking place from September 5 to 13 next year.
UWW announced this yesterday in a Press conference held on the sidelines of the ongoing Senior World Championships 2025 in Zagreb, Croatia. In attendance were Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) secretary general Faris Al Kooheji and UWW president Nenad Lalovic, who signed the agreement for Bahrain to host.
Al Kooheji said that the senior worlds will help Bahrain take wrestling to the grassroot levels in the kingdom, with the objective of launching wrestling programmes in schools.
“For us, wrestling is a long-term project,” Al Kooheji was quoted as saying yesterday by unitedworldwrestling.com.
“Wrestling is a growing sport – it’s a strategic sport for us. We got a gold medal in Paris, and we’re looking to getting more medals.
“That gold medal started to inspire a lot of people locally to pursue wrestling, which is why part of the discussions with United World Wrestling is to even help us add wrestling in schools.”
The BOC expects that the senior worlds will have a positive impact on Bahrain in more ways than one.
“Strong economic impact [from the event],” Al Kooheji added. “We’re going to get lots of travel spectators from Iran, the US, and other countries as well.
“It’s going to encourage the local community. They will understand more wrestling.”
No Arab country has ever hosted a world championships, according to the UWW, but Bahrain will etch its name in history next year.
Lalovic was quoted as saying: “Bahrain has a superstar in wrestling – they probably want to use this opportunity to promote the sport through this superstar [Akhmed] Tazhudinov.
“But he’s not the only one. They also want to develop the local Bahrain-born athletes to compete because they have the role model of the top achievement in wrestling. This is something that we considered and that is why we made this decision.”
Bahrain won its first-ever Olympic gold medal in wrestling in Paris last year, when Tahzudinov ran through the men’s freestyle 97kg weight class. A year before that, he won the world title in the same division.
Tazhudinov is also an Asian champion, Asian Games champion, and winner of other UWW Ranking Series events.
“We also want to change the continent regularly,” Lalovic said of the UWW’s plans. “A state that can organise the Asian [Youth] Games like they will do now in October, they will not face any problem with the championships, especially that we give all the assistance possible for the execution.”
The third Asian Youth Games will take place in the kingdom from October 22 to 31, during which wrestling will be part of the multi-sport programme. The wrestling events are scheduled from October 28 to 30.
Meanwhile, the UWW also announced that Bahrain will be staging the U20 World Championships in 2026. It will take place from August 17 to 23.
This international competition follows the kingdom’s successful staging of the U20 Asian championships in 2022.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
&uuid=(email))