Artur Taymazov

Artur Taymazov was born on 20 July 1979 in the village of Nogir in North Ossetia (Russia). With his brothers he took up weightlifting and freestyle wrestling; he trained under Khasan Apaev and then under Kazbek Dedegkaev.

In 2000 he changed his sporting nationality and began competing for Uzbekistan in the heavyweight division. That same year he won silver at the Sydney Olympics.

At the 2004 Olympics in Athens he became Olympic champion. He won the world championship twice, in New York in 2003 and in Guangzhou in 2006, and took gold at the Asian Games three times.

The gold medals he won at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and the 2012 Olympics in London were later annulled by the International Olympic Committee, in 2017 and 2019 respectively, after re-analysis of doping samples. Taymazov became the first wrestler in history to be stripped of two Olympic gold medals.

After retiring from sport he went into politics in Russia: since 2016 he has been a member of the State Duma for the United Russia party, representing a constituency in North Ossetia.