============================================================================ All Material Copyright (C) 1996 by Adil T. Baguirov, SportsLine USA and Reuters Sports News. All Rights Reserved. Use with permission. ============================================================================ I received plenty of e-mail thanking me for my previous article about Soccer in Azerbaijan. I hope everyone liked it. I even though of opening a special column dedicated to sports in Azerbaijan, put in on the Web Page and become a reporter! :) So I will take some of my unexisting free time (which is really scarce, since I still have to finish a couple of projects) and will bring you on a bumpy ride to show you the Azerbaijan Olympic team's journey in Atlanta. Yes, Olympics! I know they are over, but not for me, I'll tell you why below. So sit back, get plenty of "klenex's" and fasten your seatbelts! Below is the list of 20 athletes (from 23) with brief description: ------------------------------------------------------------------ Nazim Huseinov (Judo) -- Barcelona winner. (E) Zulfiya Huseinova (judo) (E) (7!!!) Valery Timokhin (Skeet shooting) (E) (38!!!) Namig Abdullayev (freestyle wrestling - SILVER!) Mahammad Ibrahimov (freestyle wrestling) Arif Abdullayev (freestyle wrestling) Elshad Allahverdiyev (freestyle wrestling) Tahir Zahidov (Greek-Roman style wrestling) Vilayat Agayev (Greek-Roman style wrestling) Adalat Mammadov (boxing) (E) Ilham Kerimov (boxing) Elvira Jabbarova (gymnastics) (10) Asif Malikov (heavy weight lifting) Tofig Heydarov (heavy weight lifting) Irada Ashumova (shooting) Emil Jabrailov (Jumps to water) (E) (23!!!) Davud Muhammadov (freestyle wrestling) Aleksey Fatyanov (Triple Jump) Vasif Asadov (Triple Jump) Mahomed Salam Gadzhiyev (Freestyle Wrestling) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Unfortunately I don't have the full list of all the athletes. :( Anyways, the only medal received was SILVER by Namik Abdoullaev in freestyle wrestling 52 kg category. FREESTYLE 52 KG --------------- Gold Valentin Jordanov Bulgaria Silver Namik Abdullaev Azerbaijan Bronze Maulen Mamyrov Kazakhstan 114.5 lbs (52 kg) ================= Preliminary Round ----------------- Namik Abdullayev, Azerbaijan, defeated Lou Rosselli, United States Round 2 - Winner's Bracket -------------------------- Namik Abdullayev, Azerbaijan, defeated Hideo Sasayama, Japan Round 3 - Winner's Bracket -------------------------- Namik Abdullayev, Azerbaijan, defeated Adkhamjon Achilov, Uzbekistan Round 4 - GOLD Medal -------------------- Namik lost to Valentin Jordanov from Bulgaria ---------------------------------------------- Back in Baku professionals think that Namik had to receive the GOLD medal, since the referee "haven't noticed" a couple of mistakes of the Bulgarian athlete. Seven-time world champion Valentin Jordanov beat Namik Abdullaev 4-3 in overtime at 114-pounds for his first Olympic gold. Abdullaev sat stubbornly on the mat for nearly a minute to protest the decisive takedown point, and his coach shoved Jordanov. Personally I don't know -- I've seen the tape, but don't know the rules (do you?) so can not say much. However it was really unpleased to see what happened to Adalat Mammadov. I have seen the fight and the judge was wrong. The worsest thing was that Adalat was among the one's who was not only expected or predicted to win, but also was supposed to! He was probably the only one to train for the Olympics from the very start. He was so close to the Olympic medal! In addition to his collection of very bad traumas (knee and elbow) he added couple more after Atlanta -- broken nose and a bloody eye... In the very end of this overview is included an article about Adalat that I occidentally found. The letter (E) and numbers in brackets () by the names of the athletes means they were (E)xpected to receive medals and their actual Olympic standing. Sportsmen such as Nazim Huseinov, Zulfiya Huseinova, Emil Jabrailov, Valery Timokhin and Adalat Mammadov were among them. In fact, Mr. Timokhin was a participant of Seul and Barcelona Olympics. once more he got out of luck and took 38 place! Nazim Huseinov was a champion in Barcelona (Bronze?). Zulfiya Huseinova (not wife of Nazim!) was the one among 3 sportswomen expected to win, but became number 7. Don't forget that judo is NOT her major, she is sambo athlete, but she qualified in judo especially for the Olympics. That tells a lot about her personality and maybe patriotism, too bad she didn't win... Emil Jabrailov, the youngest athlete (18 years old!) was among those too, but didn't sustained the level...and became number 23 or smth like that. The funniest, if you can put it that way, is that Namig Abdullaev wasn't among the one's expected to win a SILVER medal!!! In fact people stoped believing in the medal of the Azeri team shortly after the Olympics started. The worsest of all was that 2 or 3 of our athletes got out of competition before it even started, losing in the preliminaries! So that was a very nice surprize! Now some statistics: The Prize for winning Olympic medal in Azerbaijan: $10,000 In Russia: $50,000 to $100,000. In USA: up to $1,000,000 in selected sports!!! Initial number of Azeri athletes: 22 Total number of Azeri athletes: 23 Expected Number of Azeri athletes: 24 Number of medals won y Azerbaijan: 1 (SILVER) Number of athletes from Armenia: over 50. Number of medals to Armenia: 2 (Gold and Silver) Number of medals to Georgia: 2 (BRONZE) Number of medals to Russia: 63 To see the number of medals by country see: "http://167.8.29.8/plweb-cgi/idoc.pl?5811+unix+_free_user_+ www.usatoday.com..80+USATODAY_ONLINE+USATODAY_ONLINE+OLYMPICS+OLYMPICS++ Azerbaijan" However Azerbaijan did average among the CIS states (number 9) which is the same as Bahamas and Latvia, but better than Israel and India, as well as became Number 73 among countries to receive any medal at all, so that makes a pretty good profile for a team in its initial formation (not counting that unknown status in Barcelona '92.) Don't forget about our sportsmen who are no longer in Azerbaijan team. Athletes such as Valeriy Belenkiy, now participating in Germany team, winner of GOLD and BRONZE in Barcelona; and Ilgar Mamedov (Russia) in "phehtovanie", to name the few. Unfortunately Mr. Mamedov had to leave Baku with family to Russia because of higher pay. His salary in Azerbaijan was "besh shirvan" or 50,000 manats, which is $10 !!! Azerbaijan had many good sportsmen who won many medals. The Ministry of Sports and Youth of Azerbaijan Republic issued a special limited edition (500 issues) about the history of Azerbaijani athletes on the Olympics. Have anyone see it? (I haven't). Once again lack of proper organization was the cause of poor participation. Apparently the athletes started to prepare shortly before the Olympics started. (e.g. couple of month). Some of the athletes did not expected the heavy schedule of the Olympics, where they could have on average about three tournaments a day. In fact, until the last days NOBODY knew the number of people that will go to Atlanta, since some of them were waiting for their licenses being issued (one didn't receive it, otherwise the total number would have been 24). Moreover, none of the newspapers quoted the right number of people (they range from 11 to 24). Of course AzTV couldn't afford to show our sportsmen in action. They refered people to watch TRT1 (Turkey) or ORT (CIS-RUSSIA). Finally somebody had an ingenious idea to show Namik Abdoullaev's fight (approximately in a week or two after the actual fight occur). And what I can't get is why our women's volleyball and handball teams didn't participate? Throughout the history those sports were strong in Azerbaijan. Well they almost joined it too, only in the last moment...(I don't need to write, you know the answer!) ======================================================================= SportsLine USA - Reuters Sports News ======================================================================= Olympics-Boxing-Tearful Azeri protests against fight verdict ------------------------------------------------------------ ATLANTA, July 31 (Reuter) - Azerbaijan super-heavyweight Adaliat Mamedov paced tearfully around the Olympic boxing hall for about 20 minutes on Wednesday after a referee stopped his quarter-final against Nigerian Duncan Dokiwari. Mamedov, Azerbaijan's one chance of glory at the Atlanta Games, was stopped after a knockdown with 23 seconds gone in the third round and the score level at 10-10. Mamedov, an impressive puncher who had stopped both his previous opponents, won the first round 8-2. Dokiwara surged back to take the second round by the same score. Azeri team officials protested against the decision at ringside without success. Azerbaijan Sports Minister Aboulfas Karaev told Reuters: "We have made a protest. We consider the result of this fight to be not according to the laws. There were several mistakes. "The referee stopped the fight while the Azeri athlete could continue without any difficulty." Mamedov later allowed himself to be led away, clutching a handkerchief to his eyes and still sobbing. ============================================================================ A BBBB CCC Adil Baguirov A A B B C University of Southern California AAAAA BBBB C A A B B C baguirov@scf.usc.edu A A BBBB CCC baguirov@scf-fs.usc.edu http://www-scf.usc.edu/~baguirov/ ============================================================================ P.S. By the way, Chess is doing really good now in Azerbaijan. Especially among juniors. They won many medals in world competitions. Is that gonna be my next section about sports in Azerbaijan?