Uzbek judoist wins silver medal in Beijing
Abdulla (Abdullo) Tangriev
Tangriev’s path to his medal was very difficult. He had to compete against Andreas Tolzer (Germany), Janusz Wojnarowicz (Poland), and Teddy Riner, the world champion judoist from France. Non of these world famous judoists could not withstand the Uzbek might. However, in finals, Tangriev lost to Satoshi Ishii, a 22 year old judoist from Japan, a country where judo takes its origins.
By now, Uzbekistan has two medals in its count - silver of Abdulla Tangriev and bronze of Rishod Sobirov, also a judoist. The great hope is on Uzbek boxers, who are successfully paving their way to finals. We hope that Uzbek boxers will prove the outstanding might of Uzbek boxing, just like Muhammadkodir Abdullaev and Ruslan Chagaev did not long ago.
Today, overall medal standings table looks like this.
Among Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan is leading with 1 gold, 3 silvers and 4 bronze. Turkmenistan is the only Central Asian country that has not won any trophy yet.
on August 19th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Also, remember the Silver medalist in female gymnastics, Oksana Chusovitina. She was born in Bukhara, but only recently switched to representing Germany.
The amazing thing about her is that she’s 33 years old, a mother, and is the only female gymnast to ever compete in 5 Olympics.
on August 19th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Wow, I thought Chusovitina had already retired from sports. Good for her. Interesting, why she switched to Germany… Cuz Uzbekistan is doing its best to support its sportsmen.
on August 20th, 2008 at 6:24 am
It had something to do with her child getting sick with cancer. Apparently some coaches from Germany were able to get her son medical care there and she ended up living there. There’s several articles about her all over the internet and they did a story about her here on NBC.