UWW

One of the greatest Olympians from Armenia, Artur ALEKSANYAN (ARM) is the defending champion at the Games. Tokyo will be his third Olympics as he had wrestled the London and Rio editions. He won the gold medal in the Rio Games, outscoring his opponents 25-2. In London, he won a bronze medal after losing to eventual champion Ghasem REZAEI (IRI). Born in Gyumri, Armenia, the five-time European champ won his first Senior World Championships medal – a silver -- in 2013. He avenged his loss to Rezaei at the Olympics by beating him in the semifinal of the 2014 World Championships which the Armenian won. He repeated in 2015 defeating Rezaei again, this time in the final. At the Olympics, he defeated Daigoro TIMONCINI (ITA), Alin ALEXUC-CIURARIU (ROU), Cenk ILDEM (TUR) in the semifinal and Yasmany LUGO (CUB) in the final. He was the flag bearer of Armenia at the closing ceremony. He defended his world title in 2017. But in 2018, he lost the title to Musa EVLOEV (RUS), his first loss at the Worlds since 2013. He did not wrestle in the bronze medal bout. He had a chance to avenge that loss at the 2019 Worlds when Evloev reached the final against him but Aleksanyan injury defaulted. The two met again at the 2020 Individual World Cup and Evloev won the battle again. Aleksanyan will be seeded third at the Tokyo Games. He graduated from the Gyumri State Pedagogical Institute and is coached by his father Gevorg Aleksanyan.