COVID-19

Bureau Announces Change of Dates and Locations for 2021 Championships and Qualifiers

Tuesday, December 22, 2020 - 16:08 By United World Wrestling Press

Share this article

CORSIER-SUR-VEVEY, Switzerland (December 22) – The United World Wrestling bureau held a virtual meeting Tuesday to discuss several topics, including an update to the dates and locations of competitions in 2021.

Citing limited interest in a January competition, the bureau voted to move the Matteo Pellicone Ranking Series tournament from mid-January to March 4-7.

To help with costs and coordination the bureau also voted to combine the Asian Championships and Olympic Qualifier to Almaty, Kazakhstan with the tournaments set to run back-to-back April 9-17. Similarly, the African & Oceania Qualifier and African Championships are scheduled to be held back-to-back in El Jadida, Morocco from April 2-11. Due to travel concerns surrounding COVID-19 the Oceania continental championships have been cancelled.

Given the large number of expected participants, the European Championships and European Olympic Qualifier will remain at separate locations with the Qualifier scheduled March 18-21 in Budapest and the Championships April 19-25 in Poland.

The World Olympic Qualifier will remain in Sofia but has been moved one week later to May 6-9. The Pan Am Championships in Rio de Janeiro and the Poland Ranking Series events will remain unchanged.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic all competition dates and locations will be subject to change based on the conditions in host countries as well as their ability to meet United World Wrestling’s strict sanitary guidelines for events


Ranking Series Matteo Pellicone
March 4-7 (Rome, ITA)

*European Olympic Games Qualifier
March 18-21 (Budapest, HUN)

*African & Oceania Olympic Games Qualifier
April 2-4 (El Jadida, MAR)

African Championships
April 6-11 (El Jadida, MAR)

*Asian Olympic Games Qualifier
April 9-11 (Almaty, KAZ)

Asian Championships
April 12-17 (Almaty, KAZ)

European Championships
April 19-25 (Warsaw, POL)

*World Olympic Games Qualifier
May 6-9 (Sofia, BUL)

Pan-American Championships
May 27-30 (Rio de Janeiro, BRA)

Ranking Series Poland Open
June 8-13 (Warsaw, POL)

* Denotes Olympic Games Qualifier

 

More than 1000 Wrestlers in Saudi Arabia's Biggest Competition

Wednesday, February 25, 2026 - 16:40 By United World Wrestling Press

Share this article

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (February 24) -- Saudi Arabia organized its largest wrestling competition to date with more than 1000 wrestlers participating in the 10-day event.

The Saudi Wrestling Federation organized the event from February 8 to 17 with wrestling in Freestyle, Greco-Roman and Women's Wrestling. The age groups included U12, U17, U23 and senior level.

The tournament was also open to government and private clubs which surged the number of wrestlers participating. The clubs included wrestlers from different nationalities. According to the Saudi federation, 1,173 wrestlers participated with 1,034 male and 139 female wrestlers.

Over the 10 days, 1,491 matches were conducted using the official UWW Arena competition management system to ensure professional organization, transparency, and technical accuracy.

"The number of registered wrestlers in the Kingdom has doubled in recent years," Sherif HALAWA, UWW Certified Educator & Head of Sports Performance of the Saudi Wrestling Federation, said. "This development has already produced historic achievements, including Saudi Arabia’s first-ever Asian silver medal at the U20 Asian Championships."

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia, which termed the event as National Championships, has made steady success recently. It has also managed to grow wrestling at grassroots, women’s participation, referee development, and high-performance pathways.

"The technical level of Saudi wrestlers has improved significantly in recent years," Yusup ABDULSALAMOV, Senior Manager of High Performance at the Saudi Olympic Training Center, said. "There are promising talents capable of achieving strong international results in the near future. Saudi wrestling is clearly on the right path."