Wrestling: Kim favoured to take hold of gold

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Sydney: Russian Alexandre Kareline moved a step closer to an unprecedented fourth consecutive Olympic wrestling crown as he eased into the final of the under 130 kg category in the Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling tournament on Wednesday.

Kareline controlled both his quarter-final and his semi-final encounters without ever looking in trouble as he strived to re-write the record books.

In the quarter-final, Georgiy Saldadze of Ukraine was so scared of being caught by a big throw from the giant Russian that he limped to a dreary defeat on points, 4-0.

Dmitry Debelka of Belarus seemed more confident of causing an upset in the semi-final, but he too went down 3-0.

It was a simple manoeuvre that defeated him as Karelin pushed him to the mat to score a point, and rolled him on to his back to score another two. Kareline faces Rulon Gardner of the US in the final on Wednesday evening.

The most impressive finalist was Armen Nazarian of Bulgaria whose under 58 kg semi-final demolition of twice-world champion Rifat Yildiz of Germany set up a tough tussle with South Korea's reigning double world champion Kim In-Sub in Wednesday night's final.

Kim is outright favourite having knocked out the Olympic champion, Yuriy Melnichenko of Kazahkstan, in his pool.

Nazarian scored a maximum five points against Yildiz with a huge throw that also scored a bonus point for the lift. He picked Yildiz up by the waist and flipped him upside down in mid-air before slamming him into the mat.Nazarian quickly wracked up 10 points to win by technical superiority inside the first round.

The last two finals will also be fought on Wednesday evening. The under 69 kg category will be between Olympic champion Filiberto Azcuy of Cuba and Katsuhiko Nagata of Japan while Hamza Yerlikaya of Turkey faces Hungarian Sandor Istvan Bardosi for the under 85 kg gold medal.



(c) Reuters Limited.