3x Olympic Freestyle Champ Saitiev Retires

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Three-times Olympic freestyle wrestling champion Buvaisar Saitiev has decided to retire after a career that has spaned nearly two decades.

Saitiev, 34, one of only three wrestlers to have won three Olympic titles, was thinking of bidding for a record fourth gold at the 2012 Games in London but then changed his mind.
“I’m not sure I can still compete at the highest level, “the Chechen, who won Olympic gold in Atlanta in 1996, in Athens in 2004 and last year in Beijing, told reporters in his home town of Krasnoyarsk.

Reporting by Gennady Fyodorov; Editing by John Mehaffey