WRESTLING – Bahrain's Olympic champion Akhmed Tazhudinov bagged a bronze medal last night in the men’s freestyle 125kg category at the Senior World Championships 2025 in Zagreb, Croatia.
Tazhudinov secured his place on the podium after defeating Akhmed Adamovich Magamaev from Bulgaria on points 13-10 in one of two bouts for a share of third place.
Tazhudinov is joined as a bronze medal winner by Arash Yoshida of Japan, who beat Zbigniew Baranowski from Poland on points 6-0 in the other contest, also held yesterday.
Capturing the gold medal was wrestling legend Kyle Snyder of the US, who beat Amirali Hamid Azarpira from Iran on points 4-2 in the final.
Snyder clinched the fourth 97kg world title of his career, adding to his triumphs in previous editions of the worlds in 2015, 2017, and 2022.
The American was also the weight class’ gold-medallist at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
With last night’s results, Bahrain wrapped up their campaign at the Croatian capital on the final evening of the freestyle wrestling programme.
The kingdom’s senior men’s wrestling national team came away with three bronze medals from the prestigious United World Wrestling (UWW) event, with Tazhudinov’s winnings adding to those of Shamil Sharipov in the 125kg class and Khidir Saipudinov in the 79kg.
Their haul helped Bahrain claim fifth place overall on the freestyle team rankings, where they finished with 53 points as the top Arab nation.
Tazhudinov, Sharipov, and Saipudinov scored 15 points apiece in their categories, while Magomedrasul Asluev added eight points in the 74kg division, where he made it to the quarter-finals.
Also yesterday, Bahrain’s Alibeg Alibegov came up short in his quest to add another bronze medal for the national team.
Needing to win two bouts in the repechage round to make it to one of two bronze medal contests in his weight class, Alibegov first beat Ayub Muratovich Musaev of Belgium on points 3-3, but then lost to Ibragim Sharaputtinovich Ibragimov representing UWW on points 0-3 in his next assignment.
Bahrain’s three medals in Zagreb brought their overall total in the history of the world championships to five. Tazhudinov had claimed 97kg gold in the 2023 edition, while Adam Batirov clinched the 70kg silver in 2018.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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