Cuba Headlines, Cuba

Cuban wrestler Mijaín López wins in 120 kg weight class

Submitted by editor on Sat, 2007-09-22 09:31.

The Cuban wrestler beat Russia’s Khasan Baroev, giving
the island one of its four tickets to the 2008
Olympics Games in Beijing

An old saying goes that where there is revenge, there
is no offence. The time for revenge seems to have come
for Cuban wrestler Mijaín López (120 kg), who bettered
Russia’s Khasan Baroev on Wednesday in the struggle
for the gold medal at the World Championship of
Wrestling being held in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Baroev had previously proved inaccessible for Mijaín,
who had been beaten by the Russian at the Olympic
Games in Athens in 2004 and in the finals of the
previous world championship in 2006.

However, this time the curse was broken. The Cuban
giant defeated the Russian 2-0 (1-1, 1-1), which shows
that he had to surmount the challenger in two periods
to score the last point to give him the win.

According to the event’s website, Mijaín first beat
Azerbaijani Anton Botev (7-0, 9-3) and then Uzbekan
David Saldadze (5-0, 2-0). In his third fight he had
to pull out the stops to defeat Armenian Yuri
Patrikeev, who he had previously eliminated at the
World Cup in Teheran in 2005.

Yuri was the only of the six rivals who could win a
single period against the Cuban wrestler. The Russian
won the first period 4-0, but the Cuban athlete
managed to tie in the second period, 7-0. The war was
decided in the third period, 1-1, favorable to the
Cuban, who scored the last point.

In the quarterfinals, Miajin defeated Byelorussia’s
Ioseb Chugoshvili (6-0, 7-0) and in the semi-finals
beat Hungarian Mihaly Déak-Bárdos (1-1, 4-0). The
stage was then set for the golden triumph, which ended
with Cuba getting its first ticket to the 2008 Olympic
Games in Beijing.

That same day, Cuba’s Andy Moreno (55 kg) captured a
bronze medal and his own Olympic ticket in free-style
wrestling in a division won by Russian Besik Kudukhov.

The bad news came with the elimination of
«heavyweight» Olympic champion Yandro Quintana (60
kg), something really unbelievable. Today, matches
will be held between Geandry Garzón (66 kg), Iván
Fundora (74 kg) and Roilandy Zúñiga (84 kg). Garzón
won a bronze in the last world championship, while
Fundora won a bronze as well in Athens in 2004.

Submitted by editor on Sat, 2007-09-22 09:31.