Turkey's Rıza Kayaalp wins 4th world championship in wrestling
Riza Kayaalp (Blue) of Turkey and Oscar Pino (Red) of Cuba compete in Greco-Roman 130 kg final of Wrestling World Championships in Astana in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan on September 17, 2019. Turkey's Riza Kayaalp won the gold medal.
Turkey's Rıza Kayaalp become the first Turkish wrestler to win 4 world championship gold medals in Greco-Roman style wrestling.
Olympic silver medalist, 29-year-old Kayaalp has surpassed legends like Hamza Yerlikaya and Selçuk Çebi, who both have three world championships.
Rıza beat previous world bronz medalist Chilean Yasmani Acosta Fernandez and then Lingzhe Meng from China, both with a score of 4-0, to reach the quarter finals. He then won 5-1 against Georgian Lacobi Kajaia to reach the semi finals where he beat Eduard Popp from Germany to reach the gold medal match.
In the final match of the 130 kg category he faced Cuban Oscar Pino Hinds to win 3-1 and brought home his fourth gold medal from a world championship tournament.
Kayaalp has also won European gold medal 9 times. His previous world titles were in 2011, 2015 and 2017.