Slovakia's David Musuľbes won a bronze medal in the men's 'royal' freestyle wrestling 120kg class on August 21, beating Cuba's Disney Rodriguez 2-0 (4-0 and 4-0).
The 36-year-old Musuľbes, a native of North Ossetia in Russia, who was the Olympic champion in Sydney 2000 (competing for Russia), double world champion and six-time European champion, entered the Beijing tournament in the last 16, where he easily defeated Nigerian Wilson Siewari (9-0). He beat Hungarian Otto Aubeli (4-1) in the quarter-finals, but then lost the semi-final bout to Artur Taimazov, who was representing Uzbekistan.
"I'm sorry about the semi-final loss against Taimazov. But I have to say that it was fair. We performed on the same level in terms of technique, but he was on top physically," said Musuľbes. "What a pity. I wanted to take gold for Slovakia. Now it's a bronze at least. Still, it's very pleasing for me. The bronze-medal fight was relatively easy, and I believed in victory from the start," said Slovakia's fifth medalist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, who will receive a Sk400,000 (€13,300) reward for his achievement.
"We hoped that David wouldn't meet another Ossetian (Taimazov), who is competing for Uzbekistan, earlier than the final, but it was decided that the bout would take place in the semi-finals", Slovak coach Rodion Kertanti told the TASR newswire. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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