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• Europe
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• 09 / 22 / 2007

An old saying goes that where there is revenge, there is no offence. The time for revenge seems to have come for Cuban wrestler Mijaín López (120 kg), who bettered Russias Khasan Baroev on Wednesday in the struggle for the gold medal at the World Championship of Wrestling being held in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Baroev had previously proved inaccessible for Mijaín, who had been beaten by the Russian at the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004 and in the finals of the previous world championship in 2006.

However, this time the curse was broken. The Cuban giant defeated the Russian 2-0 (1-1, 1-1), which shows that he had to surmount the challenger in two periods to score the last point to give him the win.

According to the events website, Mijaín first beat Azerbaijani Anton Botev (7-0, 9-3) and then Uzbekan David Saldadze (5-0, 2-0). In his third fight he had to pull out the stops to defeat Armenian Yuri Patrikeev, who he had previously eliminated at the World Cup in Teheran in 2005.

Yuri was the only of the six rivals who could win a single period against the Cuban wrestler. The Russian won the first period 4-0, but the Cuban athlete managed to tie in the second period, 7-0. The war was decided in the third period, 1-1, favorable to the Cuban, who scored the last point.

In the quarterfinals, Miajin defeated Byelorussias Ioseb Chugoshvili (6-0, 7-0) and in the semi-finals beat Hungarian Mihaly Déak-Bárdos (1-1, 4-0). The stage was then set for the golden triumph, which ended with Cuba getting its first ticket to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

That same day, Cubas Andy Moreno (55 kg) captured a bronze medal and his own Olympic ticket in free-style wrestling in a division won by Russian Besik Kudukhov.

The bad news came with the elimination of «heavyweight» Olympic champion Yandro Quintana (60 kg), something really unbelievable. Today, matches will be held between Geandry Garzón (66 kg), Iván Fundora (74 kg) and Roilandy Zúñiga (84 kg). Garzón won a bronze in the last world championship, while Fundora won a bronze as well in Athens in 2004.