BEIJING: Russian wrestler Buvaysa Saytiev won a record-tying third Olympic freestyle gold medal yesterday having fought his way back into the national team two just months ago by beating the reigning world and European champion.
Saytiev matched his golds of 1996 and 2004 by defeating Soslan Tigiev of Uzbekistan 0-1, 1-0, 3-1 in the 74 kilograms (163 pounds) finals. The only previous three-time freestyle gold medalist was the Soviet Union’s Alexander Medved in 1964, 1968 and 1972, but Saytiev is the first to win his three golds over four Olympics.
The bronzes were won by Murad Gaidarov of Belarus and Kiril Terziev of Bulgaria. Wrestling world champion Ramazan Sahin of Turkey won gold in the freestyle 66-kilogram (145 1/2-pound) bracket yesterday by scoring a tight victory over Andriy Stadnik of Ukraine.
Sahin, also the European champion, won 2-2, 2-1, 2-2. He lost the first period on a tiebreaker because Stadnik scored the final points of the period but won the third when he scored last.
Stadnik, leading 2-0 in the third, controlled Sahin in a gut wrench along the edge of the mat. Sahin worked his way out from the bottom position to maneuver Stadnik onto his side and quickly tilt his shoulders toward the mat for a two-point exposure. Sahin started the day with perhaps his most important victory, defeating Geandry Garzon of Cuba 1-0, 7-4 in a rematch of their 2007 world championship final. After that, Sahin, 25, took out two-time world junior champion Mehdi Taghavi of Iran and Georgia’s Otar Tushishvili.
The bronzes went to Tushishvili and Sushil Kumar, who won only the second Beijing medal for India. “My character and my emotional makeup brought me the victory,” said Saytiev, who needed every advantage possible after losing the first period in his fifth match of the day.
Because of an unlucky draw, Saytiev wrestled a qualification bout merely to get into the round of 16, while Tigiev advanced with a bye. That extra match almost made a difference. “The opponent was very young,” Russian coach Dmitry Mindiashvili said. “Of course, any athlete feels stressful and nervous before competition.
But I told him to forget about the goal, the medal. What a wrestler should do on the mat is to fight.” After his come-from-behind gold-medal win, one achieved by two point-producing single-leg takedowns in the third period, Saytiev invoked former American gold medalist Rulon Gardner’s on-mat retirement in Athens.
Then, Gardner took off his shoes and left them in the middle of the mat; this time, Saytiev carefully placed the Russian flag he wore during his victory celebration at center mat as hundreds of Russian fans chanted “Sy-tee-ah! Sy-tee-ah!” What a way to go out, too, against a rising, 24-year-old wrestler who appeared to have the edge against a tiring Saytiev after winning the first period.
Saytiev didn’t officially retire despite the gray that now spreads through his beard, but he can’t see a way he would be in London in 2012 at age 37.
“I represent a very strong team and people of my age in four years’ time would probably not get onto a team of such high quality,” he said.
Especially when Saytiev needed to be at his best this year merely to get onto that team, which won six of the seven freestyle weight classes in the 2007 world championships. Russia has five wrestling golds in Beijing, three in Greco-Roman and those by Mavlet Batirov at 60 kg (132 pounds) and Saytiev in freestyle, with three more weights to be wrestled today.
Saytiev, who fell to eighth in the world in 2006, regained his Olympic spot after defeating world and European champion Makhach Murtzaliev in the Russian nationals in June.
“He got ill in 2006 and had a bad time,” coach Mindiashvili said. “But now he has fully recovered from his illness and regained his power.” Saytiev won his first gold at Atlanta in 1996, only to be upset by eventual gold medalist Brandon Slay of the United States in the first round in Sydney.
Saytiev came back to win in Athens in 2004, but it was uncertain until several months ago if he would be in Beijing because most countries find it difficult to sit a 24-year-old world champion. Even for a wrestler as revered in Russia as Saytiev, who now has won nine world-level titles: three Olympics and six world championships.
Saytiev justified his selection in his first three matches yesterday, beating Ahmet Gulhan of Turkey 1-0, 4-1 and 2004 silver medalist Ivan Fundora of Cuba 2-0, 2-1, a match after Fundora eliminated United States rookie Ben Askren 3-0, 4-0.
Askren promised at the US trials in June he would win the gold and, he hinted, would beat Saytiev while doing so. Askren would have met Saytiev if he had beaten Fundora, but was never competitive in the match. “I lost — I don’t know what to say,” a crying Askren said.
Maybe it was too much to expect two Americans with scant international experience to meet and beat Saytiev in the span of three Olympics.
Saytiev nearly met Murad Gaidarov of Belarus in a rematch of their Athens bout that ended with Saytiev winning and the two wrestlers fighting as they left the mat, a fracas that briefly involved spectators. But Gaidarov lost to Tigiev 1-0, 1-0 in the semis.
