Zelimkhan Khadjiev, cut to fight

Refugee of Chechnya in France at the age of ten, Zelimkhan Khadjiev has “the fight in the genes” and an obstinacy which could carry it towards the summits on Saturday at the Paris Worlds.

“I have not yet brought back a medal to thank France for welcoming me.” The determined air, the 23-year-old bearded sportsman put on the meeting at home where he fights the last day, to accomplish his mission. For that, he must “be strong” and “train all the time”. “Strong” like his idol, Buuvar watchborn in Khassaviourt (Daghestan) and of Chechen origin like him. A legendary wrestler, six times world champion and triple Olympic champion. Zelimkhan Khadjievfifth at the world free wrestling championships in 2015, still has a long way to go to imitate it. At the Rio Olympic Games last year, he did not exceed the round of 16. “I trained like an animal, I was hot hot hot,” says the young man.

Face closed, “Zelim” Khadjiev returns to trauma: “At the last second, I gave in”, recognizes the wrestler, defeated by Japanese Sosuke Takatani. “I was very sad.” A founding experience in the career of the Nice adoption. Born in the Russian Caucasus, Zelimkhan Khadjiev grew up in war. He begins the free struggle at the age of seven: “Among the Chechens, it is in the genes.” Bailed by medals, the boy progresses quickly. Each missed training, “the coach struck with a jump rope,” he recalls.

In 2004, his family tried to flee to Norway. It will finally be welcomed in Nice, on the Côte d'Azur, after three months of wandering across Europe. Then begins the formation of the young prodigy in France, at the Nice Club struggle at first. Winner of all his fights, he “bored a little,” he admits today. At 14, he joined the French team, partly made up of Chechen athletes like him. Engaged in -74 kg in Paris, Khadjiev was still struggling a few days ago to make the weight.

But his ambition justifies all the sacrifices: to leave your Nice family to join the INSEP (National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance) in Paris at 18, to push your bac to prepare the Olympic Games in Rio in 2016, to take a contract with the army to secure regular income. Zelimkhan Khadjiev Launches all his strength in the struggle, which he practices with “a steel mind”, dixit his teammates from the France pole of the Federation. “He gets angry quickly but he never gives up,” says his friend Without Mukhtarovalso of Chechen origin. “We call him the TGV. He pushes a lot: when he catches the leg, no one can resist him.”

On the carpet'Insephe makes his opponents fall one by one, returns them on his back, before getting up, without never going to a large smile. Nor of his mustache and bearded, “to be a little scary anyway”. “It's everyone's friend,” says Without Mukhtarov. “We know it's the best, everyone wants to take an example from him.” But difficult to assume his status as a “greatest chance of medal”: “There are days when he will doubt, he will lose points to want to do too well”, regrets his free struggle teammate. These “doubts”, “we work to remove them,” promises his trainer, Luca lampis. And to demand: “He must do a medal, we are counting on him.”