Olympic champion Zhan Belenyuk won a bronze medal at the World Wrestling Championships in Belgrade, Serbia. In addition, he won an Olympic license for the 2024 Games in Paris.
The representative of the Greco-Roman style won the award in the weight category up to 87 kg.
Belenyuk began the competition with a convincing victory over the American Zachary Braunagelem (5:1), but in the second match he was defeated by the Turkish representative Ali Cengiz.
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According to the rules, wrestlers who lost to the future finalist advance to repechage matches. Consequently, Cengiz's entry into the final allowed Belenyuk to fight for bronze and an Olympic license.
In the repechage matches, Belenyuk first defeated the Finn Tomi Metsomeki (5:1), then the Uzbek Zhalgasbay Berdymuratov (5:3), and in the bout for bronze he defeated the representative of Kazakhstan Nursultan Tursinov (7:2).
— I would like to thank everyone who was and is nearby, supporting us in our difficult work! I see everything, I appreciate everything, I’m grateful for everything — friends, colleagues on the national team, coaching staff! Our main thanks, of course, are to our Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters for the opportunity to perform at all and the confidence in our future major victory. So, see you in Paris 2024, — written by Belenyuk.
For Belenyuk, this is the second bronze medal from the world championships in his career. Previously, he also won two golds and a silver at the World Cup.
This is the fourth bronze medal for the Ukrainian team at the 2023 World Cup in Belgrade. Earlier, another representative of the Greco-Roman style, Yaroslav Filchakov, also became a bronze medalist of the competition.
