Historic: Albania’s first Olympic medal
At long last, Albania has an Olympic medal. Or, rather, the athletes representing Albania do. On Saturday evening, wrestler Chermen Valiev secured a bronze medal at “Paris 2024”. He is from Russia, but has been naturalized by Albania. He has been competing for Albania since this year. For the bronze medal, Valiev defeated Tajik wrestler Viktor Rassadin. Against him
At long last, Albania has an Olympic medal. Or, rather, the athletes representing Albania do.
On Saturday evening, wrestler Chermen Valiev secured a bronze medal at “Paris 2024”.
He is from Russia, but has been naturalized by Albania. He has been competing for Albania since this year.
For the bronze medal, Valiev defeated Tajik wrestler Viktor Rassadin. He won against him by a score of 6:2.
Valiev won the Olympic bronze medal in the freestyle category up to 74 kilograms. He began competing on Friday. First, he won 4:3 against Azerbaijani wrestler Turan Bayramov. In the quarterfinals, he lost 6:5 to Uzbekistan’s Razambek Zhamalov. The Albanian Wrestling Federation said the decision was unfair and that victory had been taken away from Valiev. Zhamalov advanced to the final, thereby pulling Albania’s wrestler into the repechage.
In the repechage, Valiev first won 12:2 against Mahamaedkhabib Kadzimahamedau. He competed as an independent athlete in Paris, and is from Belarus.
Twenty-five-year-old Valiev is from the Russian republic of North Ossetia. He competed for Russia, and did so successfully. But this year he decided to represent Albania. And now he has made history.
Albania made its Olympic debut in 1972. It returned in 1992, but until Saturday it had no Olympic medals. And now it has its first medal.
There are three naturalized wrestlers competing for Albania. Zelimkhan Abakarov, who won a world title for Albania, was stopped in his second bout in Paris, in the category up to 57 kilograms. He did not get the chance to continue in the repechage.
Islam Dudaev competes in the freestyle category up to 65 kilograms. On Saturday, he won his first bout, but was stopped in the second, like the other two wrestlers. On Sunday, Dudaev continues in the repechage. He will first face American Zain Retherford. He needs two more wins for a bronze medal.
In other sports, Albania was not even close to Olympic medals.
In the past, Albania had come close to an Olympic medal in weightlifting. But it never took a place on the podium.
