ZAGREB, Croatia (January 6) – Iran will be sending a full team to the Zagreb Open, but it surely won’t be the same team they'll be sending to Astana, Kazakhstan for the 2019 World Championships.
Every wrestler Iran registered for the first Ranking Series event of the year will be making their senior-level international debuts, and only Abolfazl SEYEDMAHDAVI, who finished in eighth place at the 2019 Takhti Cup in Tehran, Iran, has wrestled domestically on the senior-level.
Though it’s an extremely young team, eight of the ten Iranian wrestlers bring age-group world-level experience into this weekend, with six of those wrestlers boasting world championship medals on their resumes.
The trio of cadet world champions, Poya DAD MARZ (55kg), Mohsen MADHANI (63kg), and Yousef HOSSEINVAND FATHI (72kg) lead the lower half of the Iranian lineup, while 2018 U23 world bronze medalist Aliakbar YOUSOFIAHMADCHALI (130kg) and 2018 cadet world bronze medalist Mohammad NAGHOUSI (77kg) close out the back half of their youthful lineup.
You can watch the young Iranian squad compete at the Zagreb Open on Saturday (February 9), live on www.unitedworldwrestling.org.
Iran’s Zagreb Open Lineup
55kg - Poya DAD MARZ – 2017 junior world champion
60kg - Milad REZANEZHAD HOSSEINVAND – 2017 cadet world championships - 17th place
63kg- Mohsen MADHANI – 2017 cadet world champion
67kg - Mohammad Reza Hojatollah MOKHTARI – 2016 cadet world runner-up
72kg - Yousef Hajiali HOSSEINVAND FATHI – 2016 cadet world champion, 2018 junior world bronze
77kg - Mohammad Aziz NAGHOUSI – 2018 cadet world bronze medalist
82kg - Hosein FOROUZANDEH GHOJEHBEIGLOU – 2018 junior world championships - 8th place
87kg - Hasan FOROUZANDEH GHOJEHBEIGLOU
97kg - Abolfazl Naser SEYEDMAHDAVI – 2019 Takhti Cup - 8th place
130kg - Aliakbar Hossein YOUSOFIAHMADCHALI – 2018 U23 world bronze
