A licensee has been added to the Georgian Greco-Roman style wrestler team for the XXXIII Olympic Games in Paris. At the last licensed tournament hosted by Istanbul, Ramaz Zoidze won the Olympic medal; they only needed to reach the tournament’s finals to achieve the goal.
The Georgian team entered five categories —60, 67, 77, 87, and 130 kg weights—for Paris.
Ramaz Zoidze, the World Championship bronze medalist (67 kg), passed the qualifying exam. Georgian Palavan beat the representative of a neutral country, Sweden and Kazakh rivals, to get the Olympic license, and in the semifinals, defeated Chinese Lei Li cleanly and won the second Olympic trip.
Yuri Lomadze (77 kg), who played three matches before the semifinals, qualified for the Olympics. He won easily against Daniel, Indian, and Serbian opponents, but unfortunately, in the next game, he lost 2-5 to the representative of the neutral country (Russia).
The holder of European championship silver and bronze medals, Yuri Lomadze (77 kg), has another shot at Olympic qualification. On May 10, he has the chance to secure the third place, paving the way for a potential second third place victory.
Lasha Gobadze walked the same path (87 kg). The winner of the World Championships gold and two bronze medals defeated Cuban, Armenian, and Dutch rivals on the way to the final. They met Azerbaijan Rafig Huseinov in the semifinals and lost 1-4, but he, like Lomadze, will be allowed to compete for third place. Gobadze will have to meet again in case of winning, where the last licensing of the weight will be revealed.
It is worth noting that Georgian Grec, a theo-Roman style wrestling team, has two licensees – Ramaz Zoidz (67 kg) and Robert Kobliashvili (97 kg).
Unfortunately, Friedon Abuladze (60 kg) and Jacob Kajaia (130 kg) were eliminated from the Istanbul license tournament today.
At the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, four out of six Georgian Greco-Roman style wrestlers were represented in the 67, 87, 97, and 130 kg categories.
