2023 World Championships: Men's Freestyle Preview (Part Two 79-125kg)

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 12th, 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 last five weights, along with some of their notable achievements, pre-seeds, information on the American entry, and 2022 medalists.

Here is Part One of our Men's Freestyle Preview (57kg-74kg)

79 kg

Andrei KARPACH (AIN - BLR) - 2018 European Bronze Medalist

Chems  FETAIRIA (ALG) - 2022 African Champion

Francisco KADIMA (ANG) - 2x African Bronze Medalist

Arman AVAGYAN (ARM) - 2x U23 World Bronze Medalist, 3x European 5th Place

Orkhan ABASOV (AZE) - 2021 European U23 Silver Medalist, 2x Junior World Bronze Medalist

Mihail GEORGIEV (BUL) - 2019 European U23 Bronze Medalist

Jasmit PHULKA (CAN) - 2023 Pan-American Silver Medalist

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