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Havana, October 28 (RHC) – Olympic and world champion Luis Orta (67 kg), in the Greco-Roman style, secured a bronze medal at the World Wrestling Championships currently taking place in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Orta began his display of takedowns and maneuvers to get behind his opponents in the previous round, securing a victory by technical superiority (9-0) over Algeria’s Fayssal Benfredj. He then defeated Georgia’s Diego Chkhikvadze 12-8 to advance to the quarterfinals.
At that stage, however, he lost 4-6 to Uzbekistan’s Aytjan Khalmakhanov—the world number two and 2025 world champion—who went on to reach the final, thereby pulling Orta into the repechage round.
There, on Monday, Orta defeated American Otto Black 7-4. In the match for third place, he overcame Armenia’s Slavik Galstyan—ranked second in the world—whom he had also defeated in a bronze-medal bout at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Also competing in the preliminary rounds were Kevin de Armas (63 kg) and Daniel Gregorich (87 kg), both of whom were eliminated in their opening matches.
De Armas lost 1-6 to Finland’s Tino Ojala, while Gregorich fell 5-9 to Egypt’s Mohamed Elsayed.
On Tuesday, Cuban freestyle wrestlers Greili Bencosme (50 kg) and Milaimis Marin (76 kg) were both defeated in their first matches.
Bencosme lost 0-5 to Morgan Turner of the United States, while Milaimis fell 4-14 to Turkey’s Kadriye Kocak.
