The new man for Azerbaijan: Saeid Mollaei

Former World Champion Saeid Mollaei did not take part in the recent European Championships in Sofia because he did not represent a European country. After fleeing Iran, he was taken in by Mongolia. He would go on to win an Olympic silver medal (in Tokyo) for his adopted country.

However, you can expect to see Mollaei fighting in next year’s Europeans because effective this month, he will be fighting for Azerbaijan.

Mollaei fought Fatiyev at the Olympics

According to Mollaei, one of his biggest dreams was to fight under the Azerbaijani flag. So, when his contract with the Mongolian Judo Association expired, he approached the Azerbaijan Judo Federation, which gladly accepted him.

It's well known that Azerbaijan, which has many top judokas, is a bit lacking in the U81kg division. Mollaei is expected to fill that gap. Interestingly, in the Tokyo Games, it was Mollaei who beat the Azerbaijan player, Murad Fatiyev, in the preliminary rounds. 

Reverse Kata Guruma

Mollaei is an exciting player with many unorthodox techniques but his most famous one is something that has been described as a “reverse kata-guruma” which he does from a double-sleeve grip. He would drop underneath uke and instead of driving forward, he would flip backwards, taking uke with him.

It's a spectacular technique which initially confounded both his opponents and judo commentators alike. When he used this technique in the 2018 World Championships, famed IJF commentator Neil Adams mistakenly referred to it as a sode-tsurikomi-goshi because it did kind of resemble a drop sode (which also usually involves a double sleeve grip). It was only later on that people came to realize this was a new kind of kata-guruma that Mollaei was using.

Not the only double switcher

Mollaei has done something unusual in changing countries twice but he is not the first player to have represented three countries. Vedat Albayrak of Turkey used to be known as Roman Moustopoulous when he represented Greece. But before that he was Vano Revazishvili of Georgia.