Kyle Dake seals fourth-consecutive title at Wrestling World Championships

It was a good day for Team USA's freestyle wrestling stars at the at the 2022 World Championships on Saturday [17 September] with Kyle Dake winning gold while J’den Cox and Thomas Gilman both sealed silver.

The other big winners were Albania's Zelimkhan Abakarov and Kamran Ghasempour of Iran, who beat Gilman and Cox respectively in their gold-medal matches.

Those results mean that the North American giants are now head and shoulders above their competition on the men's freestyle leaderboard with three victories and three silvers overall.

Yesterday, 16 September, Jordan Burroughs won his sixth world title, while reigning Olympic champion David Taylor sealed his second world title.

Their closest rivals are Iran, who now have one gold, two silver and two bronze medals in the men's division at these world championships.

Kyle Dake claims fourth-consecutive world title

Tokyo 2020 Olympic bronze medallist Dake put on a fearsome display at the Belgrade Arena to land his fourth-consecutive world title, and second-consecutive at 74kg.

In what was a repeat of the 2021 final against Tajmuraz Salkazanov of Slovakia, the American looked more comfortable from the start as he raced to a 3-0 lead in the first round.

Despite being cautioned early in the second, the reigning champion continued to bamboozle his opponent with a spectacular variation of attacks that helped him close out the match 3-1.

Dake secured a 44-second pin in the quarter-finals on Friday, before grinding out a criteria win over Iran's 2019 world bronze medalist Yones Emamichoghaei in what was a titanic semi-final.

The 31-year-old previously won the 2018 and 2019 finals at 79kg, before landing gold at 74kg in 2021 (with the 2020 world championships cancelled due to the COVID pandemic).

The first bronze medal at 74kg went to Asian champion Yones Emamichoghaei of Iran, who shut out India's Sagar Jaglan 6-0.

In the second bronze bout, Frank Chamizo of Italy demonstrated his famously casual-looking, but effective, defensive game to win an epic clash against Turkey's Soner Demirtas 5-3.

Zelimkhan Abakarov wins Albania's first wrestling world title

Albania's Zelimkhan Abakarov produced a stunning display of athleticism to beat reigning world champion Thomas Gilman of USA 7-2 in the 57kg final.

The 2022 Kolov-Petrov champion was aggressive from the off, racing to a 4-1 lead by the end of the first round.

Gilman eventually found his feet, but Abakarov defended his lead with vigour to seal his nation's maiden World Championships freestyle wrestling gold medal.

Preceding that bout, there was a huge roar in the first bronze medal match as home hero Stevan Andria Micic - who lost 6-1 to Abakarov in the semi-finals - eased past Reineri Andreu Ortega of Cuba with a final score of 7-1 to win his nation's first freestyle wrestling world medal.

In the second bronze match, Zanabazar Zandanbud of Monglolia beat Zou Wanhao of China via. fall.

Kamran Ghasempour defends 92kg title

After a cagey opening to the 92kg final, Kamran Ghasempour drew first blood against two-time world champion J'den Cox with a take down worth 2 points 1.5 minutes into the first round.

There was a delay in the second as the Iranian received medial attention for actual blood, and despite Cox increasing the intensity of his attacks at the resumption, Ghasempour did enough to defend his lead and retain his title 2-0.

It will be a familiar feeling for the American, who was eliminated from the 2021 World semis by the same opponent.

The first bronze at 92kg was won by Miriani Maisuradze of Georgia, who went from 2-0 down to 10-2 ahead in one action after clutching Ahmed Batayev's right ankle and rolling along the floor picking up points at will.

But the Bulgarian mounted an unbelievable fight back to level the match at 10-10, before Maisuradze clinched the bout with a one-point score in the last second.

Azerbaijan's Osman Nurmagomedov won the second bronze bout with a crushing 11-0 win over Radoslaw Marcinkiewicz of Poland, which ended the match early.

Tomorrow, 18 September, is the final day of action, but there is plenty more finals fun to look forward to in the following weight divisions of men's freestyle wrestling:

61kg

Higuchi Rei (JPN) Vs Vs Reza Atri (IRN)

65kg

Rahman Amouzad (IRN) Vs John Diakomihalis (USA)

97kg

Kyle Snyder (USA) Vs Batyrbek Tsakulov (SVK)