Battle of the strongest

Kiryl Maskevich and Pavel Glinchuk fought for the title of the absolute champion of Belarus in Greco-Roman wrestling

This had never happened in the wrestling history of our country before! A few weeks after the Belarusian championship, two gold medal winners took to the mat again to determine the strongest. Kiryl Maskevich, the winner of the individual World Cup, the medallist of world and European championships, and Pavel Glinchuk, the world junior and youth champion, fought a powerful duel during the League of the Brave finals.

Fight between Kiryl Maskevich and Pavel Glinchuk for title of Belarus' absolute champion in Greco-Roman wrestling    

The history of the confrontation began at the national championship. Pavel Glinchuk, who competes in the weight class up to 130kg, picked up the microphone after winning the final and challenged the winner of the decisive bout in the weight class up to 97kg, in which Kiryl Maskevich and Abubakar Khaslakhanau met, “The idea of such a fight came literally 20 minutes before my final — it came out of nowhere. At that moment, I did not know who exactly I would meet if the fight took place. I have, let’s say, unclosed gestalts with both Kiryl and Abubakar. I have never lost to Abubakar in a competition, but it’s been a long time since we fought last. I have separate accounts to settle with Kiryl: in 2021, we met at a tournament in Grodno, and I lost there. I wanted to even the score.” 

The title match was decided to be held during the League of the Brave finals — a joint project of the President’s Sports Club and the Belarusian Wrestling Federation, the third season of which ended over the weekend. 

The Minsk’s Prime Hall was a real sell-out: first, young wrestlers from Grodno and Brest regions determined the strongest in the fight for the bronze medals of the tournament, and then representatives of Mogilev Region and Moscow teams took to the mat to decide the fate of the gold. The meeting between Maskevich and Glinchuk became the highlight of the tournament. 
Pavel earned a five-point advantage at the beginning of the fight, but Kiryl managed to seize the initiative and win — 8:5. After that, he said that this was not the first time he had fought in the heavyweight category: in 2020, there were no rivals in his weight at one of the tournaments, so he fought in another category. “Of course, this is unusual. It feels like the guys who are heavier are a bit slower, so I tried to use this to my advantage,” Kiryl said.  The guys agreed on one thing: they managed to make a great show for the fans. The support from the stands during their fight was simply breathtaking. Kiryl noted that it was comparable to the one at the national championships — the popularity of wrestling in Belarus has indeed reached a new level. 
By the way, the fight of the guys seems to have given a new impetus to the Mogilev Region team in the League of the Brave final. It is the third season that these rivals have met in the final confrontation: after the first two matches, the score was 1:1. The current match for Mogilev residents began very uneasily: after 15 fights, they lost to their rivals with a score of 2:13. Yet, after a pause, during which Maskevich and Glinchuk showed class, everything changed — they began to score points one by one. Alas, the guys still failed to turn the tide of the fight. The Muscovites won with a score of 17:13. 

By Tatiana Pastushenko

Photos by Yelizaveta Kobetskaya