Mustafa Dağıstanlı

Mustafa Dağıstanlı — Biography

Mustafa Dağıstanlı is a Turkish wrestler counted among the best freestyle wrestlers in the world in the 1950s and at the start of 1960, an Olympic gold medallist in Melbourne in 1956 and Rome in 1960. He won three world titles and 389 of his 393 bouts, with four draws, and was never beaten or pinned in freestyle.

He took up oil wrestling as a child and mat wrestling at 18 during his naval service. He became Turkish champion in 1951 and wore the national singlet for the first time in 1953. At his first world championship, in Tokyo in 1954, he won the 57 kg title outright, and in 1955 he won the Greco-Roman gold at the Mediterranean Games in Barcelona. In 1956 he became Olympic champion in Melbourne. After moving up to 62 kg he was world champion again in Istanbul in 1957 and in Tehran in 1959, and finished second, unbeaten, at the 1958 World Cup in Sofia. In 1960 he took his second Olympic gold in Rome, won the Balkan title in Burgas the same year and retired from competition.

Afterwards he worked as a coach, held posts in the Turkish Wrestling Federation and served as a Justice Party member of parliament for Samsun from 1973 to 1980. He was inducted into the FILA International Wrestling Hall of Fame in September 2009 and held the State Medal of Distinguished Service. He died in Antalya on 18 September 2022, aged 91, and a ceremony in the Turkish parliament was announced.