Iran’s ten-man team harvested three gold and one silver medals at the Bishkek Asian Greco-Roman Championships in the Kyrgyz capital on Wednesday.
In the 97kg category and in the last match of the tournament in the Greco-Roman division, Seyyed Mostafa Salehizadeh faced Uzbekistan’s Rustam Assakalov and led the first round 1-0. By hammering his rival 4-0 Salehizadeh won the gold medal, Unitedworldwrestling.org reported.
Winner of the Paris World Championships and bronze winner in the Asian Championships in New Delhi in 2017, Hossein Nouri went for his back to back medal spree and with remarkable improvement, compared to 2017, won gold in the 87kg category.
Nouri went on the mattress in the final game against Masato Sumi of Japan and beat him 3-0 to emerge victor.
Heavy-weight Behnam Mehdizadeh in the 130kg class also won gold by defeating Uzbek Muminjon Abdullaev 3-1 to defend his 2017 title in the New Delhi event. Mehdizadeh had won gold at the 2017 Paris World Championships.
The Paris bronze medalist, Mohammad Ali Geraei in the 77kg class was the first Iranian to reach the finals in the tournament on the opening day on February 26.
Geraei opened his bid for a continental gold by moving past Maxat Yerezhepov from Kazakhstan -- a gold medalist at last year’s tournament in New Delhi and a winner of four Asian medals.
The phenomenal Geraei stepped into the final game unbeaten but lost in intense combat 7-6 to the Chinese rival, Bin Yang, and won silver.
Bishkek Asian Championships opened on Feb. 27 and will continue till March 4 in three categories, namely Greco-Roman, freestyle and women wrestling. The contests started with the Greco-Roman category.
