Wrestling News: For the first time in United World Wrestling (UWW) history, two wrestlers will share the Olympics gold medal. Bilyal Makhov and Komeil Ghasemi have been updated to the top spot in the London Olympic medal winners list after the original winners were tested positive of a banned substance.
In January 2019, Georgia’s Davit Modzmanashvili, who originally won the silver medal, was disqualified after testing positive for banned substances. On 23 July 2019, it was announced that as a result of retesting samples, original gold medalist Artur Taymazov was also disqualified.
It has never been seen before that holders of gold and silver medals in the same weight were disqualified and there has been no provision of anything like this in the UWW rulebook either. Changes were made to the UWW code of conduct, according to which now the awards will be redistributed as follows: gold medal will go to the third position finish while there will be no silver medallist in the 120kg freestyle in 2012 Olympics.
Who is Komeil Ghasemi?
The Iranian heavyweight is two-time Olympic medallist — 2012 gold and 2016 Rio silver medal. He is also 2014 world championship silver medallist three-time Asian championship medallist including two silver and one gold medl.
Who is Bilyal Makhov?
He was the Russian champion in 2007 and 2010, European champion in 2010 and World champion in 2007, 2009 and 2010 in Men’s Freestyle 120 kg wrestling and bronze medalist in 130 kg Greco-Roman Wrestling at the World Championships in 2014 and 2015. In 2015, he won the Russian National Greco-Roman Wrestling Championships
He won the bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the men’s 120 kg category which has now been upgraded to gold.