MOSCOW, February 5. /TASS/. Two-time Olympic champion Abdulrashid Sadulaev of Russia is set to compete at the 2024 European Wrestling Championships in Romania this month, the head coach of the Russian national freestyle wrestling team, told TASS on Monday.
On September 18, 2023, Sadulaev sustained a neck injury and had to withdraw from the 2023 World Wrestling Championship in Belgrade, which was a qualifying tournament for the 2024 Summer Olympics. Four days later he underwent surgery at a hospital in Moscow. Last month he appeared at the 2024 Golden Grand Prix Ivan Yarygin in the Russian city of Krasnoyarsk, where he won the gold in the under-97 kilogram weight category.
"Abdulrashid [Sadulaev] will be taking part in the European Championship; you can count on that, however, the final roster of the [national] team for the tournament will be announced later, because we need to make corrections in some of the weight categories, which will be defined soon following qualifying," Khadzhimurat Gatsalov told TASS.
"If speaking about Sadulaev, I should say that things are business as usual with him, he is training at full volume at the training center in Novogorsk [in the Moscow Region]," Gatsalov continued. "However, the [upcoming] championship in Europe does not count towards the Olympics for us."
"The most important tournament will be held later in Azerbaijan and Turkey and they will decide on the Olympic spots and on our [national team’s] roster. Most probably we will line up Sadulaev and Artur Naifonov," Gatsalov added.
Sadulaev, 27, is a two-time Olympic gold medalist (2016, 2020), a five-time World Champion (2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2021), Individual World Cup champion (2020), a four-time European Continental Champion (2014, 2018, 2019, 2020), the Ivan Yarygin Grand Prix winner (2014, 2018, 2024), a two-time European Games Champion (2015, 2019) and a two-time Cadet World Champion (2012, 2013).
Artur Naifonov, 26, competes in the under 86-kg weight category and won the 2020 bronze medal at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, in addition to being three-time European Continental champion and a three-time Russian National champion.
The 2024 European Wrestling Championships will be held in the Romanian capital of Bucharest between February 12 and 18, 2024.
The French capital of Paris is scheduled to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games between July 26 and August 11, 2024.
IOC sanctions against Russia, Belarus
On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.
Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.
In late March, 2023, the IOC recommended to permit individual athletes from Russia and Belarus to take part in international sports tournaments, but only under certain conditions. Specifically, athletes from the two countries should not be "actively supporting" Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine and must compete under a neutral status. Russia and Belarus were also banned from participating in international team events.
On July 26, 2023, the IOC extended invitations to the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris to 203 National Olympic Committees. Russia and Belarus did not receive invitations. The IOC explained later that there was no deadline regarding the issue of Russian and Belarusian athletes’ participation.
On October 12, 2023, the International Olympic Committee suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) until further notice after the Russian organization included the Olympic councils of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions as its members.