Winning four medals on the second day of freestyle wrestling games at the Cadet World Championships in Zagreb, Croatia, Iran won the team title of the games on Friday.
Gold medals for Rahman Amouzad-Khalili in 48kg and Alireza Abdollahi in 92kg categories plus two bronze for Seyyed Erfan Jafari in 51kg and Ali-Akbar Fazli in 61kg class sent Iran to the top of the table ahead of the US in second place and Russia third.
According to the results on the United World Wrestling website, Amouzad-Khalili, the 2018 Cadet Asian champion, defeated Swiss rival Thomas Fischer 12-0 in less than two minutes in his first clash.
In no mood of giving a single point away, Amouzad-Khalili hammered Mongolian Jiguur Sarantuya 11-0 in the quarterfinals and advanced to the semis. Iranian cadet then humbled the Turk Ahmet Yucel 9-1 to get his ticket to the final clash.
In the gold-medal bout, he defeated Rafayel Harutyunyan of Armenia 5-0 to win the first medal of the night.
Another golden boy of Iran was continental champion Abdollahi who in a flawless victory defeated Kazakh wrestler Yunus Gafurov 10-0 in his opening game.
In his second match Abdollahi went on the mat against American rival Albert James Ferrari. The Iranian got two points and gave zero to win the match.
With a boosted morale, Abdollahi stormed into the quarterfinal against Indian opponent Monu Dahiya and won the game 10-0. He continued the winning streak in the semis where he defeated German rival Johannes Mayer 5-0 and secured his place in the final.
Abdollahi overpowered the 2017 Cadet European silver medalist Omer Agtas from Turkey 13-2 in the final to double the gold medals of the night.
Bronze Aid
Two bronze medals won by Jafari and Fazli on the final day helped Iran win the first place of the tournament.
Jafari brought down Russian wrestler Israil Baitazaev and Ashraf Karimzada from Azerbaijan each with a 10-0 victory but finished in a draw against American Matthew James Ramos 2-2. Since James got points after the Iranian, (according to the rules) he was announced as the winner and sent Jafari to the qualification games where he ended hopes for the Greek Ioannis Martidis 10-0 and won bronze.
Winning his first match against Alibeg Alibegov from Bahrain 9-1, Fazli lost the second to Hamza Alaca from Turkey 10-0 but as Alaca went to the finals, Fazli regained hopes for the bronze medal in the repechage games where he beat Kazakh Iassaui Mukhtaruly 8-1, Sukhbat Munkh Ochir from Mongolia 10-0, and Shamil Mamedov of Russia 18-7 to win bronze.
On the first day of the freestyle competition, Iran won three medals; Amir Zare in 110kg took gold; in the 80kg class, Mohammad-Reza Ghiyasi won silver and Mohammad Karimi settled for bronze in the 65kg category.
With a total of three gold, one silver and three bronze medals, Iran left Croatia with the team title with 152 points. The US trailed Iran with 132 points and Russia came in third with 116 points.
Croatian Wrestling Federation in Zagreb organized the Cadet World Championship from July 2-8.
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