"As a judoka, I won all the medals except the Olympic championship."
Elkhan Mammadov, a former Azerbaijan national judoka, told Idman.biz.
He commented on his student Zelym Kotsoiev’s (100 kg) being the Olympic champion. According to Mammadov, intense training played a big role in his student winning this title: "We are thrilled with this success. He did a really great job. Although I am not an Olympic champion, God has given me this through my student. We were all very honored. Words are not enough to express those feelings. You have to experience it."
The veteran judoka said that Zelym's final match was very dramatic: "25 seconds before the end, the opponent was ahead with a win. However, giving Ilya Sulamanidze the shido in the last 8 seconds was a great miracle. The opponent's mistake - throwing himself on the ground - was an incredible thing. Zelym's "falling" on him excited the Georgian athlete. Those seconds may have taken many years from my life. The main thing is that everything ended well in the end. Unlike me, Zelym did not believe that he would become a champion. After winning the gold medal, he came and hugged me and said that you believed in me. I always told him this. Thank goodness we got what we wanted."
The Azerbaijani judoka defeated Ilya Sulamanidze (Georgia) in the final.
Banuchichek Huseynli
Idman.biz
