Kountouratzis is world champion

With a tally of five gold, two silver and the same number of bronze medals, the World Veterans Wrestling Championship at the indoor gym “G. Galanopoulos” in Loutraki.

The last gold medal that completed the Greek… parade from the first place of the podium, came from Spyros Kountouratzis, who completed his undefeated course in the 100km. of Greco-Roman in category A (up to 40 years old). This great success brought down the curtain on a completely successful organizational and competitive event.

Spyros Kountouratzis’ journey to the top of the world started from the quarter-finals where he had a difficult draw, as last year’s world champion Zolt Dyka was up against him. The 37-year-old Greek wrestler prevailed 5-1 against the Hungarian and sent him to the repechage. An equally close match took place with the Ukrainian Ihor Kholodny whom Koundouratzis defeated 4-1 to advance to the final.

The title for the Greek wrestler was decided on details and tactics against the “bronze” last year in Plovdiv Valid Said from Sweden. Although Kountouratzis found himself behind with 1-0, he equalized and as the athlete who got the last point, won the gold medal.

In the same category, Ilias Boukis made excellent performances in the 100km. In the qualifier, he technically dominated Chingiz Masabirov of Kyrgyzstan and advanced to the quarter-finals, but then missed out on the semi-finals in the details as he was defeated 5-3 by Sweden’s Valid Said, who reached the final with Kounduratzis.

Boukis had another chance to be on the podium, but in the match against Nikolai Trisin (independent) he was defeated in exactly the same way as Kountouratzis. He led 1-0, but Trisin equalized and as the athlete who took the last point won the bronze medal.

From there, at 62 kg, Dimitris Behlioulis in his first match in the B group lost by fall to the Serbian Sambojic Futo and in the second by technical superiority to the Italian Nicola Caradona.

In the qualifier of 88k. Heraklis Siamidis did not make it and was defeated by fall by the Bulgarian Plamen Liubomirov Palev. The Greek wrestler had another chance through the repechages, but lost by technical superiority to Sweden’s Nils Juren and was out of medal contention.

With great effort and a great performance in the second half of the match in the 130k quarterfinals. Konstantinos Pagonis touched a great turning point. Although he found himself down 7-0 and narrowly missing a TKO from Bulgaria’s Hristo Ivanov Georgiev, the Greek wrestler battled back to make it 7-6. The time was not enough to complete the flip and get a big qualification and he was fatally left out of the continuation.

The overall harvest of the Greek expedition to the World Veterans Championship

Free

In category A, Greece took third place with 43 points among 23 countries, behind the United States of America which collected 73 and Japan which collected 44. The 25 were given by Yiannis Papadopoulos with the 1st place at 130 kg. while 10 was taken by Ilias Boukis who took 5th place at 100 kg. Efthymis Tserepas (70k.) and Savvas Karipidis (88k.) gave 4th place.

In category B, Greece placed 14th with 11 points among 23 countries. 9 points were given by Spyros Koursaris with 9th place at 130 kg and 2 by Amir Allah Golipour with 10th place at 78 kg. First place was taken by Kazakhstan with 69 points, followed by the United States with 65 and Kyrgyzstan with 43.

In category C, the Greek team collected 48 points and tied with Turkey in 4th place among 25 countries. The first place was occupied by the United States of America with 66 points, while the trio was completed by Iran with 65 and Mongolia with 50. Emzarios Bentinidis with the gold medal at 88 kg gave Greece 25 points, while in the same weight category Christos Tortopidis was 7th and Pavlos Koronidis 15th. Andreas Kleousis who won the bronze medal at 78 kg gave our country 15 points, while Avraam Papadopoulos offered another 8 with his 7th place at 130 kg. In the same category, Apostolos Stamos was 10th.

In category E, Greece with 10 points took 15th place among 25 countries. The points were given by Dimitris Athanasiadis with the 5th place at 88 kg. The first place was taken by the United States of America with 95 points, followed by Iran with 75 and Germany with 55.

Greco-Roman

In category A, Greece took 5th place with 44 points among 21 countries. The first place was won by the United States of America with 72 and followed by Bulgaria with 50 together with Hungary which also collected 50. At 100 kg Spyros Kountouratzis won the gold medal and gave 25 points to Greece, while in the same category Ilias Boukis was placed in 5th place. Dimitris Behlioulis at 62 kg gave 9 points with the 6th place he took, at 130 kg Konstantinos Pagonis with the 7th place gave 8 points, while Heraklis Siamidis who was ranked 10th at 88 kg got another 2.

In category B, the Greek delegation took 22nd place among 26 countries with 2 points won by Efthymis Papageorgiou with 10th place at 78 kg. At 88 kg, Nikos Spyridakis took 11th place, while his brother Yiannis was 12th. Vassilis Kaloumenos was in 18th place. First came Kazakhstan with 80 points and the trio was completed by Sweden with 77 and Bulgaria with 50.

In category C, Greece shared 6th place among 24 countries with Georgia and Sweden, having collected 25 points. These came from the gold of Emzarios Bendinidis at 88 kg, while the silver medal of Vassilis Batala and the bronze of Christos Tortopidis did not give points, as only one athlete from each country gets points. In the same category, Panagiotis Papageorgiou was placed in 8th place and Nikos Christopoulos in 9th. The United States of America took first place with 69 points, followed by Poland with 40 and Hungary with 39.

In category D, the Greek team, with 25 points, placed 10th among 27 countries. The points came from the gold medal of Vassilis Boukis at 70 kg, while in the same category Dimitris Kefalidis was ranked 15th. At the top was Iran with 80 points, while the trio was completed by Hungary with 60 and Kazakhstan with 55.

Finally, in category E, Greece got 20 points and 10th place together with Norway among 20 countries. The points came with the silver medal of Yiannis Athanasiadis at 78 kg. The United States of America with 78 points, Sweden with 60 and Hungary with 51 completed the top three.