Iran has won the Freestyle Wrestling Cup in the FILA World Wrestling championship for 2013, beating Russia in the final level of competition.
Iranian media report that the tournament came to an end in the 12,000-seat hall of Tehran’s Azadi Sports Complex on Friday February 22, with Ehsan Lashkari winning the final match. That clinched first place for Iran, with Russia and the United States coming second and third respectively.
Hassan Rahimi, Masoud Esmailpour and Sadegh Goudarzi won against their Russian adversaries in the 55, 60 and 74 kg categories, while Mehdi Taghavi conceded defeat in the 66 kg category.
Teams from Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Turkey, Kazakhstan, the U.S., Georgia, Japan and Bulgaria competed for the 2013 Freestyle Wrestling Cup. Iran last hosted the competition in 2009, when it lost in the finals to Azerbaijan.
Iran also reached the finals for the World Greco-Roman Wrestling cup but conceded defeat to Russia on Wednesday.
The International Federation of Wrestling has chosen Nevada and Las Vegas as the next hosts in 2015.
The championship in Tehran was held under the shadow of the International Olympic Committee’s recent decision to omit wrestling from its list of summer Olympic sports. If the decision is finalized in September, wrestlers will no longer compete in the Olympics after the 2016 games
