Bitter Silver

Undoubtedly, any kind of Olympic award brings joy. But the silver won by the Ukrainian Greco-Roman wrestler Davyd Soldadze in the 97 kilogram category tasted bitter. Greco-Roman wrestling referees support virtually everybody but representatives of the former USSR. Having beaten the Greek wrestler Konstantinos Tanos in the semifinals, Davyd offered stiff resistance to the Swede, Mikael Ljungberg. The Swede won only in overtime with the score of 2:1. Michael scored points after Davyd applied his techniques to him.

The Ukrainian national team filed a protest but, quite expectedly, it was rejected. A little earlier, two other Ukrainian wrestlers yielded to their rivals in bronze bouts. But while Davyd Manukian (76 kg) lost to Finland’s Marko Yuli-Hannuksela in an equal-force bout with a commendable 2:4, Andriy Kalashnykov (54 kg) unconditionally surrendered to the Korean Kang Young Gyun with a staggering 0:7.