Light-Heavyweight, Greco-Roman (≤87 kg), Men

The two top seeded wrestlers in the Greco-Roman light-heavyweight division (87 kg), Ali Cengiz from Türkiye (#1) and Dávid Losonczi from Hungary (#2), both missed out on a medal. While Cengiz had lost his first bout against Arkadiusz Kułynycz from Poland, Losonczi advanced to the semi-final, where he lost 3-1 to the eventual gold medalist, Bulgaria’s Semen Novikov. Ironically, Losonczi and Cengiz, who shared gold at the 2023 World Championships, also shared the fate of missing out on a podium finish on their Olympic débuts.

The way was therefore clear for another first-time Olympian, the #3 seed Novikov. He was born Ukrainian and represented his home country until 2021, winning two World U-23 championships and the 2020 European Championships. For his new country, he won bronze at the 2023 World Championships. At Paris, Novikov won three rounds on points, going over the full six minutes in all three of them. His easiest win came in the final, when he had no problem to score a clear 7-0 win on points, dominating both periods. His opponent in the final was the Iranian Alireza Mohmadipiani, silver medalist in the 82 kg class at the 2023 World Championships and winner of the Asian Olympic Games qualification tournament. In his first two matches, he won convincingly by superiority. In the semi-final, he drew 3-3 with Zhan Beleniuk from Ukraine, the #4 seed. Mohmadipiani only advanced to the final on account of scoring the last points.

Ironically, Novikov left Ukraine because he had little chance to compete internationally, ranking only second in the country behind Beleniuk, the Olympic silver (Rio 2016) and gold medalist (Tokyo 2020). Beleniuk, the son of a pilot from Rwanda, who studied in Ukraine, won his bronze medal match in Paris against Kułynycz. Losonzci, however, was defeated in a tight match for bronze by the 2022 World Championships silver medalist Turpal Bisultanov, born in Chechnya but now representing Denmark.