Ghasem Rezaei

Rezaei at the 2016 Olympics

Personal information

Born

18 August 1985
Amol, Iran

Height

1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)

Weight

88 kg (194 lb)

Website

Official Instagram Profile

Sport

Wrestling

Event(s)

Greco-Roman

Club

Takhti Amol

Coached by

Saeed Shirzad

Medal record

Representing Iran
Men's Greco-Roman Wrestling
Olympic Games
	2012 London	96 kg
	2016 Rio	98 kg
World Championships
	2007 Baku	96 kg
	2014 Tashkent	98 kg
	2015 Las Vegas	98 kg
Asian Championships
	2006 Almaty	84 kg
	2007 Bishkek	96 kg
	2008 Jeju City	96 kg
World Youth Championship
	2005 Vilnius	84 kg
Asian Youth Championship
	2004 Almaty	84 kg

Ghasem Rezaei (Persian: قاسم رضايى‎‎, born 18 August 1985) is an Iranian Greco-Roman wrestler. He is an Olympic gold and bronze medalist and two-time Asian Champion. nicknamed Tiger Amol.^[1]

Career

Rezaei first success at the international level was 2007 when he won bronze in the 2007 World Wrestling Championships. However, his run at the top of the wrestling world was be short lived. Though he represented Iran in the 2008 Olympics, he suffered early defeat and failed to win a medal. Rezaei two huge success won the gold medal at the 2007 Asian Wrestling Championships and 2008 Asian Wrestling Championships. In 2009, Rezaei found himself unable to compete due to injury, and in his absence from the sport, Iran saw other star wrestlers rise to world prominence in the 96 kilogram weight class.^[2]

In the years leading up to the 2012 games, Rezaei was unable to recapture his status as Iran's top Greco-Roman wrestler at 96 kilograms, but says he remained optimistic that his hard work would pay off. Rezaei's faith in himself was rewarded in 2012 when Rezaei shocked the Iranian wrestling world and won the Olympic berth for his country. Rezaei in final defeated Rustam Totrov 3–0 in the final at the Excel Center in London on Tuesday.^[3] Rezaei overpowered Turkey Cenk Ildem 3–1 in his first match, before he beat Artur Aleksanyan 3–0 in the quarter-finals thanks to his straight-back suplay or salto technique. Rezaei defeated Yunior Estrada Falcon 3–0 in the semi-finals. He won the gold medal in the men's 96 kg Greco-Roman at the 2012 London Olympics in London.^[4]^[5] Ghasem Rezaei captured gold medal at 2015 International Greco-Roman wrestling tournament, Pytlasinski in Poland. Rezaei in 2015 World Championship won a silver medal at the Greco-Roman 2015. He with Elis Guri 3–0 in the semi-finals, and qualified for the final bout, where he conceded a 3–0 defeat to Artur Aleksanyan and scooped up the silver.^[6] Iran's 98kg athlete Ghasem Rezaei who was a hope for gold medal ended up in Bronze in Greco-Roman wrestling competitions of Rio, Rezaei won the bronze medal in the men's 96 kg Greco-Roman at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.^[7] Rezaei in his last Olympic game stood in front of Carl Fredrik Stefan Schoen. Schoen went up 4–0 after a takedown and gut wrench in the first period. The Iranian battled back in the second period, scoring with back-to-back gut wrenches to make the score 4–4 and ultimately give him the victory on criteria.^[8]

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/10/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.