All eyes are on the World Championship in wrestling

30 national wrestlers will compete in the championship to be held in Croatia's capital Zagreb from September 13-21.

The national team, which has achieved significant success for years in the heavyweight division with Taha Akgül, Rıza Kayaalp and Yasemin Adar Yiğit, will take the stage at the World Championship after the generation change.

Taha Akgül, who won three world championships during his time as an athlete and ended his career after the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, will be taking part in the World Championship delegation for the first time as the president of the Turkish Wrestling Federation.

Having won two world championships in her career and having retired from the 2025 European Wrestling Championships, "Woman of Firsts" Yasemin Adar Yiğit will be supporting her friends from the stands this time as the vice president responsible for women's wrestling.

Many athletes from the national team, which aims to form the roster for the 2028 and 2032 Olympics, will be participating in the World Championship in the senior category for the first time.

There is only one world champion in the squad

Among the athletes on the national team roster, only Buse Tosun Çavuşoğlu has a world championship.

Buse, who won the gold medal in the women's 68kg weight class at the last World Championships, which included Olympic weight classes, held in Belgrade, Serbia in 2023, will travel to Croatia as the only world champion athlete in the crescent-star delegation.

Buse, who was chosen as the 2024 female wrestler of the year by the World Wrestling Association, finished this year's European Championship with a bronze medal.

National wrestlers Ali Cengiz and Burhan Akbudak, who have won world championships in their careers, will not be able to compete in the event in Zagreb due to injuries.

Among the wrestlers in the squad, Soner Demirtaş, Evin Demirhan Yavuz, Selçuk Can, Enes Başar and Ahmet Yılmaz also hold third-place rankings in the world.

Those who have won the most world championships

In the history of the World Wrestling Championship, national athletes have won 61 gold medals.

Rıza Kayaalp, who has won 5 world championships in his career, holds the title of the Turkish wrestler who has won the most gold medals in the organization.

In Turkish wrestling history, Hüseyin Akbaş has won 4 world championships, while Hamza Yerlikaya, Taha Akgül, Mustafa Dağıstanlı and Selçuk Çebi have each won 3 world championships.

National team's last World Championship performance

Turkey finished the 2023 World Championships with seven medals: two gold, one silver, and four bronze. The national team won one gold, one silver, and two bronze medals in Greco-Roman, one gold in the women's event, and two bronze in the men's freestyle event.

Among the crescent-star wrestlers, Buse Tosun Çavuşoğlu and Ali Cengiz won the gold medal, Rıza Kayaalp won the silver medal, and Taha Akgül, Feyzullah Aktürk, Selçuk Can and Enes Başar won the bronze medal.

Meanwhile, the National Wrestling Team won seven medals, four of them gold, at the 2022 World Championships, also held in Belgrade, with Yasemin Adar Yiğit, Taha Akgül, and Rıza Kayaalp, winning all three heavyweight divisions. The national team, which last topped the Greco-Roman World Championships in Herning, Denmark, in 2009, won the championship in this category after 13 years.

- 14 medals at the 2025 European Championship

National wrestlers won 14 medals in the first European Championship they participated in during Taha Akgül's term as federation president.

At the 2025 European Wrestling Championship held in Slovakia's capital Bratislava from April 7-13, the national team won 14 medals, including 1 gold, 6 silver and 7 bronze.

Türkiye, which finished second in the team classification in both the Greco-Roman and women's categories and third in the freestyle category, won its only gold medal, which came from Kerem Kamal, who will also compete in the 63-kilogram Greco-Roman style at the World Championships.

Staff

The national athletes who will represent Türkiye in the 2025 World Wrestling Championship are:

Men's freestyle

57 kilos: Yusuf Demir

61 kilos: Emrah Ormanoğlu

65 kilos: Cavit Acar

70 kilos: Haydar Yavuz

74 kilos: Soner Demirtaş

79 kilos: İbrahim Metehan Yaprak

86 kilos: Osman Göçen

92 kilos: Alperen Tokgöz

97 kilos: Resul Güne

125 kilos: Hakan Büyükçıngül

Women

50 kilos: Evin Demirhan Yavuz

53 kilos: Zeynep Yetgil

55 kilos: Elvira Süleyman Kamaloğlu

57 kilos: Emine Çakmak

59 kilos: Bediha Gün

62 kilos: Selvi İlyasoğlu

65 kilos: Kadriye Aksoy Koçak

68 kilos: Buse Tosun Çavuşoğlu

72 kilos: Nesrin Baş

76 kilos: Elmira Yasin

Greco-Roman

55 kilos: Muhammet Emin Çakır

60 kilos: Enes Başar

63 kilos: Kerem Kamal

67 kilos: Murat Firat

72 kilos: Selcuk Can

77 kilos: Ahmet Yılmaz

82 kilos: Alperen Berber

87 kilos: Hasan Berk Kılınç

97 kilos: Abdulkadir Çebi

130 kilos: Muhammet Hamza Bakır

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