Arsen Fadzayev

Arsen Fadzayev was the world’s dominant freestyle lightweight wrestler during the 1980s. Fadzayev, who took up wrestling in 1976 and competed in the freestyle lightweight division his entire career, rarely lost a match. After winning the 1981 European Junior Championships and 1982 World Junior Championships, Fadzayev was selected for the Soviet national team in 1983 and was considered the favorite for the 1984 freestyle lightweight title, but the Soviet boycott put an end to his Olympic hopes. Instead, in 1984 he competed at the Friendship Games and won gold in the freestyle lightweight class. Fadzayev made his début in the Olympic arena four years later as a favorite, won the gold medal, and repeated that victory in 1992. In addition to his Olympic victories, Fadzayev was a six-time World Champion (1983, 1985-87, 1990-91) and a four-time European Champion (1984-85, 1987-88). He also won the World Cup in 1983, 1985, 1986 and 1989 and silver at the 1989 Worlds. Domestically, Fadzayev won four Soviet titles (1983, 1986, 1989, 1990). Fadzayev retired from sports after the 1992 Olympics and from 1992-96 worked as a wrestling coach with CSKA Moskva and the Russian national team. In 1996, however, Fadzayev decided to make a comeback and compete in his third Olympics. After not making the 1996 Russian Olympic team, Fadzayev, a graduate of the Uzbek National Physical Culture Institute, used his connections in that country to get Uzbek citizenship and went to the 1996 Olympics representing Uzbekistan. At the Olympics, however, the former champion was clearly past his prime and lost two of his three matches, failing to advance to the medal round.

After the 1996 Olympics, Fadzayev started to work as deputy director of the Federal Tax Police Service of the Russian Federation in North Ossetia and later worked as deputy director of the Federal Tax Police Service of the Russian Federation in Northern Caucasus. In the 2000s Fadzayev entered politics and, after serving two terms in North Ossetian parliament, was elected to the Russian State Duma (parliament) in 2003, where he was deputy chairman of the parliamentary Committee on Physical Culture, Sport and Youth Affairs and a member of the Commission on the North Caucasus. Fadzayev was re-elected to the State Duma in 2007 and served as its deputy chairman of the parliamentary Committee on CIS Affairs and Relations with Compatriots, but was not re-elected to the State Duma in 2011. In 1997 he also founded the wrestling club Alany in Vladikavkaz and has headed it since. In 2003 Fadzayev was one of the first 10 inductees elected to the FILA International Wrestling Hall of Fame.