2023 World Championships: Men's Freestyle Preview (Part One 57-74kg)

We’re less than a week away from the 2023 Senior World Championships, so it’s time to unveil our previews for the event. We’ll go in order of the competition and hit half of the weights one day and the other half the following day. 

The tournament will start off hot with the men’s freestyle competition. In 2022, our team earned medals at eight of ten weights; half of which were gold. That performance propelled the American squad to a team title, as well. 

Will the 2023 team be able to repeat? This year’s team is extremely talented, however, six of the ten representatives will be wrestling in their first Senior World Championships. 

The elephant in the room is whether or not perennial power Russia will be able to compete. As of noon on September 11th, Russia has submitted entries. In order for the Russian team to wrestle, there will need to be third-party checks done on each team member before September 15th. For the sake of this preview, they have been included; however, this is a fluid situation and they may be a last-minute scratch as the tournament starts Saturday. 

With that out of the way, here are the entries at each of the first five weights, along with some of their notable achievements, pre-seeds, information on the American entry, and 2022 medalists. 

57kg

Dzmitry SHAMELA (AIN - BLR) - 2021 U23 World 5th Place

Zelimkhan ABAKAROV (ALB) - 2022 World Champion, 2023 European Silver Medalist

Bofenda KALUWEKO (ANG) - 2023 African 9th Place

Arsen HARUTYUNYAN (ARM) - 2x World Bronze Medalist, 2x U23 World Champion

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