Dimitris Athanasiadis showed from the first moment that he was aiming for the winners’ podium and did everything to win a medal at the Loutraki World Veterans Wrestling Championship, but in the end fatigue was enough.
Athanasiadis competed in the 88 kg category E (up to 60 years old) and started from the qualifying round, being No. 3 on the board.
With an excellent performance in his first match, Athanasiadis defeated Nurzhan Asilbekov (No. 2). The Greek champion took an early 2-0 lead. A missed challenge allowed the Kazakh to go 2-1 down before four unanswered points from Athanasiadis sent him through to the last eight.
There, he was faced with the No. 1 player on the board, Nicolas Caramiello. Again the Greek champions took a 1-0 lead, with the Italian equalizing after a penalty, but Athanasiadis was undeterred, became more aggressive and cruised to a 5-1 victory.
In the semi-final, against Igor Doguchaev (he plays as an independent), Athanasiadis did not manage to start as strongly and was defeated 4-0.
In the bronze medal match against Iran’s Johari Sefid, he took an early lead of 4-0 before going on to win over Athanasiadis by fall and climb to the third step of the podium.
The gold medal was won by Igor Dokuchaev and the silver by the German Guido Meltzer.
Meanwhile, Spyros Koursaris experienced two defeats at 130 kg (up to 45 years old). In his first match in the second group he was defeated by fall by the Romanian Podar Peto and in the second by technical superiority by the Russian Anton Fetisov (he competes as an independent).
From then on, Amir Allah was unlucky at 78 kg (up to 45 years old), as in the qualifier against the German Markus Dufferner he injured his left thigh during the match and had to withdraw.
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