Obituary

Olympic champion Mustafa Dagistanli passes away

By United World Wrestling Press

CORSIER-SUR-VEVEY (September 20) -- Two-time Olympic champion and member of the United Wrestling Hall of Fame Mustafa DAGESTANLI (TUR) passed away on Monday. He was 91 years old.

Born in 1931 in Soguroinar village of Carsamba, Turkey, Dagistanli won gold medals at the 1956 and 1960 Olympic Games. He was also a three-time world champion with gold medals in 1954, 1957 and 1959.

In the 1956 Melbourne Games, Dagistanli won gold in the 56kg weight class. Four years later in Rome, he jumped up to 62kg and finished on the top of the podium.

Dagistanli made his debut for Turkey in 1953 but quickly became one of the most dominant wrestlers in the world and won the first world title in Tokyo in 1954.
 
In his 320 recorded bouts in Turkey, Dagistanli won 319 out of 320 bouts and 70 out of 73 at the international level. The achievement puts him among the best wrestlers walking on the planet during his active days.

After his retirement, he worked as a coach and was part of the Turkish Wrestling Federation. He also served in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey as the Samsun Deputy of the Justice Party for two terms between 1973-1980 and received the State Distinguished Service Medal.

Development

New Referee and Rules Courses coming to the UWW Academy

By United World Wrestling Press

CORSIER-VEVEY, Switzerland (December 9) --- The Development Department and Referee Commission will launch a series of courses centered around Olympic wrestling and refereeing rules. Evaluating holds and situations are not always easy and can be very complex.  These courses are designed to highlight specific and more complicated rules in hopes of providing a better understanding of how situations are being evaluated. Over the next year, will be 10 courses developed and published on the UWW Academy site.

“We are excited to announce new courses on the UWW Academy Platform, designed to elevate refereeing standards and promote excellence across all levels. These courses cover essential topics such as attack-counterattack actions, evaluation of holds, takedown and control, and out-of-bounds situations," said Antonio Silvestri. "As Head of the Refereeing Commission, I encourage all referees—experienced or starting out—to take advantage of these courses. Continuous learning is key to our success, and these courses will help us maintain the highest standards of integrity, fairness, and professionalism in every match. Let's keep raising the bar together." 

The first course on Attack vs Counterattack situations has been published on the Academy site. Attack vs Counterattack situations are referees' most complicated and challenging situations to evaluate. This course will try to highlight how these situations are evaluated and what questions referees must answer during an action. While this course and the others are centered around referees, they are available and encouraged to be completed by all wrestling stakeholders.

The Attack vs Counterattack course will begin with background information and the rules which include video examples.  Then the course will provide 10 specific video examples along with explanations. Next the participants will practice their video analysis with 10 videos.  The course will finish with a 15-video quiz. All the courses that will be published will follow a similar format.

The UWW Academy is the official educational platform for United World Wrestling. It offers numerous courses on coaching, referees, rules, sports administration, and beach wrestling. The academy also offers additional resources, performance analysis metrics from major UWW events, videos, and the Wrestle4Fun curriculum. It is free and available to all participants. To get started and create your free profile, please visit  https://academy.uww.org/.