“Omarov Wins Bronze at European Wrestling Championship 2021, Becomes First Male Medalist in Over a Decade”

Thirty-four-year-old Omarov won his third match at the tournament. In Saturday’s semi-final, he was only defeated by the favored Artur Aleksanjan from Armenia, who won his sixth European title today after winning the final against Bulgarian Kiril Milov, adding it to his complete collection of Olympic medals and four golds from the World Championships.

Omarov, a native of Dagestan who has been representing the Czech Republic for a long time, won his first medal at the EC, his highest so far was fifth place from 2020. He took care of the best Czech result at the championship, surpassing Adela Hanzlíčková’s fifth place. He is the first male medalist at the European Championships since 2009, when Marek Švec also won bronze.

Omarov was seeded in the second round of the competition and defeated Arif Niftllayev of Azerbaijan 2-1 on Saturday. Then he won 3:1 over the Ukrainian Vladen Kozlyuk, a multiple medalist from the Youth EC and WC. He lost to Aleksanjan in the semi-finals clearly 0:9 and had to wait for his opponent in the duel for bronze.

Kobliashvili won the right to challenge the Czech representative today after winning over Hungarian Tamás Lévai. With the advantage of rest, Omarov then waged a balanced battle with the Georgian, who won all his previous successes in the lighter categories, which was decided by auxiliary points in favor of the Czech Olympian with a 1:1 result.