The 18-year-old wrestler will seek gold at the World Junior Freestyle Championships in Sofia, before looking to the 2024 Olympics.
“I have the slab, I always want more.” Rakhim Magamadov has the grip and the confidence of those who topple mountains. The Montalbanais won his first major title in Rome on July 3, winning gold at the European Freestyle Wrestling Championships in the – 86 kg category. At only 18 years old, he is perhaps the greatest hope in French freestyle wrestling, and he knows it.
Chechen pride
Born in Gudermes, a small town in eastern Chechnya, he admits to having “no memory” of his life in the Caucasus. And for good reason. He fled with his family a Chechnya devastated by years of war, at only 4 years old. A very early uprooting which does not prevent him from keeping ties with his region of origin. “I go back there every summer vacation. It’s a great pride for me to be Chechen”, confides the wrestler.
At the age of 6, his father enrolled him in the Club des Lutteurs Montalbanais (CLM). “In the family, it’s wrestling or nothing. I wanted to play football, my father said no.” Over the course of the fights, he finds in the fight an outlet, and in the CLM a family. “It’s more than a club. Patrick and Aline [Sabatié, à la tête du club NDLR] helped me when I arrived in France, in particular to have the papers.” After years of training in Montauban, he joined the hope center of Dijon at the age of 16. A first step before the National Institute of Sport, de l’Expertise et de la Performance (INSEP), which he joined last September. “I was already used to training a lot, I was even a bit ahead of the others, so my integration was ‘is done quickly,” says the man who now lives in the capital.
“To scare”
Paris precisely. Two years before the Olympic Games, it is impossible for him to get his head off a triumph in the new venue at Porte de la Chapelle. However, he still has one year left in junior before the big jump to the big boys. “For me, I’m above everyone in my category in France, but I don’t want to talk too fast. Next year, I’m still a junior, and I’m going to take everything, “assumes the Montalbanais without trembling. “I want to arrive as a senior and impress, scare. If I continue like this, I think I will be one of the favorites in Paris.” No matter where this quest for the Grail takes him, wrestling is not about to leave the mind of anyone who is already passing his coaching diplomas. “Wrestling has given me everything. I can’t imagine my life outside of it.”
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