Oleksandr Zakharuk
Zakharuk entered the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, as a top medal contender, in the men's bantamweight category (54 kg), after claiming a bronze from the 1999 World Wrestling Championships in Ankara, Turkey.[3] During the preliminary pool, Zakharuk pinned neighboring Russia's Leonid Chuchunov on his opening bout, and then eclipsed Bulgaria's Ivan Tsonov with a powerful effort and a 10-point advantage to earn him a spot for the quarterfinals.[4] Followed by the next morning's session, Zakharuk fell behind U.S. wrestler and 1998 world champion Sammie Henson with a score 4–8, before he sought a chance to fight back in a consolation battle against Kazakhstan's Maulen Mamyrov for a fifth-place finish.[7][8] He continued to deliver a more stellar performance from Sydney four years earlier by pinning Kazakhstan's Baurzhan Orazgaliyev and overpowering Belarusian wrestler and 2001 world champion Herman Kantoyeu to seize another shot of an Olympic medal.Fighting against Russia's Mavlet Batirov in the quarterfinal match, Zakharuk could not score a single point to push him off the mat, and instead, managed to finish only in seventh at the end of the tournament.