Saldadze, David Tengizovich

David Saldadze was born in the city of Kutaisi, Georgian SSR , and when he was 15 years old, he moved to Lugansk , where his elder brother, George, lived. It was in Lugansk that Saldadze began to seriously engage in wrestling, he was coached by Nikolai Ivanovich Rubezhniy. Under the leadership of the latter, David won four European Junior Championships and the 1996 World Cup.

At an adult level in 1998, Saldadze won the “bronze” of the World Cup , and two years later went to represent Ukraine at the Sydney Olympic Games. Saldadze made it to the finals, where the Swede Mikael Jungberg came out on the carpet against him. In those days, the rules of Greco-Roman wrestling had the rule of cross capture. David was in a winning position and tried to hold it. However, the opponent did not allow David to execute this capture, for which he received a warning. Saldadze accrued two points. However, after half a minute the judges changed their minds and did the opposite: Lungberg - two points, Saldadze - a warning. With the score 0-2 in favor of the Swede, Saldadze tried to recoup and even carried out one successful attack. For her, the judges awarded the Ukrainian wrestler only one point. Saldadze continued to put pressure on the opponent, but soon the time was over, and he did not have time to equalize. Since winning requires an advantage of at least three points, the winner of the Games was determined by a judicial decision, as a result, the first place was given to the Swedish fighter ^[1] . The Ukrainian team unsuccessfully tried to appeal the judicial decision ^[2] .

After the Olympics, David moved from Lugansk to Donetsk . He signed a contract with the successful at that time Mariupol sports club Azovmash. Coach of the national team of Ukraine Alexander Kotov continued to trust Saldadze and included him in the team's application for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens . In the first match, Saldadze lost to the Georgian Ramaz Nozadze . At first, David obviously won, but first the judges gave him a warning, and ten seconds later they put him on the ground.

Immediately after the Olympics, Saldadze left Ukraine due to the conflict ^[3] . In Mariupol, he was offered to move to Uzbekistan . David gained weight and began to fight in the category of up to 120 kg. Under the Uzbek flag, he performed at the 2008 Olympics (14th place) and the Asian Games 2010 , in the last tournament he won a bronze medal.

Rewards

• Order of Merit III degree (10/06/2000) ^[4]

• David Saldadze - Olympic statistics at Sports-Reference.com
• David Saldadze - profile on the International Wrestling Database website