World champion Mijain Lopez won Greco-Roman wrestling Olympic gold in the super-heavyweight category yesterday after Sweden’s Ara Abrahamian caused a scandal at the middleweight victory ceremony.
Disgusted with losing on points in the semi-finals against the later gold medalist Andrea Minguzzi, Abrahamian tossed his bronze medal onto the wrestling mat after receiving it and left.
“I don’t care about this medal. I think the semi-final shows that [the ruling body] FILA does not play fair. I didn’t deserve to lose. The system is corrupt,” the 2004 silver medalist Abrahamian said. “This will be my last match. I came here to win gold. And I didn’t. So I consider it a failure.”
PHOTO: AP
Swedish Olympic Committee chairman Stefan Lindeberg said he did not condone but “understood” Abrahamian’s protest which could lead to sanctions from the International Olympic Committee.
“It was inappropriate,” Lindeberg told Swedish radio. “I understand his feelings,[he] aimed for gold but was not given a fair chance.”
The bronze medals went to Mindaugas Mizgaitis of Lithuania and Yuri Patrikeev of Armenia.
Russia did better in the heavyweight division, with Aslanbek Khushtov defeating Mirko Englich in the gold medal bout after also beating the German at the last European championship final. Adam Wheeler of the US and Asset Mambetov of Kazakhstan earned bronze.
Khushtov was untroubled in a 2-0 decision as Englich conceded that “Khushtov is the best in the world.”
The Russian had an impressive campaign as he outscored his opponents 43-0 en route to the gold.
Minguzzi, meanwhile, was over the moon. He upset world and Olympic champion Aleksey Mishin in the quarter-finals, and, after the controversial win over Abrahamian, got gold with a 2-1 decision over Hungary’s Zoltan Fodor in a final of outsiders.
“To me, this is worth the world. I am ecstatic right now. I couldn’t be any happy,” said the delighted winner.
The bronze medals went to Namzi Avluca of Turkey and Abrahamian.
TITLE CAMPAIGN: The victory sent the Monkeys to the Taiwan Series for the third time in the past four seasons as they seek their first championship since 2019 The stage is set for the Taiwan Series after the Rakuten Monkeys on Monday beat the Uni-President Lions 4-3 in Game 5 of the CPBL Challenger Series in Kaohsiung. The Monkeys, who entered the top of the ninth scoreless, tied the game with a three-run blast by Lin Chih-ping and scored the winning run in the 10th on an RBI single by Lin Li, a three-time batting champion in the CPBL. Both players entered the game as pinch hitters. “The coach told me to stay prepared as a pinch hitter in the later part of the game. My teammates had
The Ministry of Sports on Wednesday night called for the Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA) to address issues in Taiwanese soccer after national manager Huang Che-ming on Tuesday resigned following Taiwan’s elimination in AFC Asian Cup qualifiers. Taiwan on Tuesday were thrashed 6-1 by Thailand in their Group D tie at Taipei Municipal Stadium. Taiwan finished with no points, after losing all four of their matches, eliminating them from qualifying for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup. Huang made his surprise resignation at a post-match news conference, following three losses since he took over the team from English coach Gary White in August. Huang
For a second straight day, protests by La Liga players against staging a regular-season game in Miami, Florida, in December were censored or not fully broadcast for television audiences. The television feed of Barcelona’s home game against Girona switched right before kickoff to an exterior view of the stadium, which only showed part of the field from a distance. That impeded home audiences from seeing the teams’ players standing still for the first 15 seconds in opposition to La Liga’s plan to hold the Barcelona-Villarreal game across the Atlantic on Dec. 20. The broadcasts of the initial moments after kickoff of the
HIT AND RUN: Toronto manager John Schneider got his wish that his team ‘find some slug in the air out here,’ as the Blue Jays combined to total 611m of homers Tired in Toronto, the Blue Jays slugged in Seattle. Vladimir Guerrero Jr and George Springer on Wednesday woke up the Jays, as Toronto hit five home runs to rebound from an early deficit, routing the Mariners 13-4 and closing to 2-1 in the American League Championship Series (ALCS). Toronto had 18 hits — all within the first three pitches of each at-bat. “If they give us a first pitch, the pitch that we’re looking for, we’re going to attack and we’re going to be aggressive,” Guerrero said. Seattle starter George Kirby gave up eight of the hits. “I wasn’t really executing when they got