According to “Varesh Se”, Although the national freestyle wrestling team of Iran entered the 2026 World Championship in Kazakhstan as the defending champion, and after the brilliance of Hassan Rangers’ students and the team’s championship, the expectations of the freestyle wrestlers were also high, but the high level of preparation of the American and Russian wrestling teams upset the equation for Iran.
In the end, the Pejman team won a total of six medals with two golds by Ahmad Javan at 61 kg and Amir Hossein Zare at 125 kg, a silver by Mohammad Nakhudi at 79 kg, and three bronzes by Rahman Amouzad at 65 kg, Amir Mohammad Yazdani at 74 kg and Hassan Yazdani at 97 kg, and ended his career in the world championships with 133 points and the third title. While America and Russia had a close competition to reach the championship title until the last moment.
Maybe in some weights such as 57 kg or 70 kg, there was an expectation of elimination of Iranian freestylers, but Kamran Ghasempour in 86 kg can be considered the big failure of Pejman team, who with the history of winning two world gold medals and a bronze medal last year in 86 kg, hoped to win his third gold medal this year, but he did not even get bronze. Likewise, Amir Hossein Firozpour, who did not even repeat his bronze medal last year.
In general, if we want to compare the performance of Iran’s freestyle wrestling team with last year, we can see that this year, the number of finalists in Iran has increased from four to three, but the number of gold medals has remained at the same number of two. Although Iran repeated its last year’s performance of two golds, two silvers and three bronzes, it could not repeat its championship in the team division.
* In 57 kg, Milad Walizadeh did not perform well and after a heavy defeat against the American opponent, he could not overcome the Russian wrestler in the second chance and withdrew from the competition.
* In 61 kg, Ahmad Javan can be considered the phenomenon of the Iranian team, a wrestler who defeated his rivals one after another and finally won his first world gold medal, while last year he got a silver medal.
* In 65 kg, although Rahman Amouzad was considered the number one contender for the championship title, he could not repeat his last year’s gold.
* In 70 kilos, Sina Khalili could not work as well as he should and maybe in his second world experience and was eventually eliminated.
* In 74 kg, Amir Mohammad Yazdani had an ups and downs process. After a good start, he suffered a technical injury yesterday against his Russian opponent, but today he came back very well and won the bronze medal.
* In 79 kilos, Mohammad Nakhudi won a medal for the sixth year in a row at the World Championships, but despite being a finalist, he failed to break his spell of not winning gold and won silver again.
*In 86 kg, after facing a very difficult draw, Kamran Qasimpour was surprised in the competition with his opponent from Kyrgyzstan and he was hit by a technicality, and finally with the defeat of this wrestler Qasimpour was also eliminated in the next rounds to give the biggest shock to the Iranian wrestling convoy.
* In 92 kilos, Amirhossein Firozpour, although he was expected to improve his bronze medal last year, but after advancing to the semi-finals, he experienced two consecutive defeats and finished in fifth place.
* In 97 kg Hossein Yazdani, except for his talkative wrestling with Arash Yoshida, showed a good performance and finally won his 11th world medal by winning a bronze.
* In 125 kilos, Amir Hossein Zare had a great performance and added another gold to his honors list with four consecutive victories with a great score.
The team classification of this tournament is as follows:
1- America 194 points, 2- Russia 185 points, 3- Iran 133 points, 4- Azerbaijan 88 points, 5- Japan 47 points, 6- Kyrgyzstan 43 points, 7- Kazakhstan 40 points, 8- Georgia 36 points, 9- Mongolia 35 points, 10- North Korea 30 points.
