Russian wrestler gets choked out, still moves on to win gold medal

Published Nov. 15, 2016 2:14 p.m. ET

share

facebookxredditlink

Damon Martin

Mixed martial arts isn't an Olympic sport, but a Russian wrestler found out how a guillotine choke works after he was put to sleep during a match on Monday.

And the craziest part is he woke up and came back to win the match before moving onto the finals where he won the gold medal.

Roman Vlasov was facing off with Croatian Bozo Starcevic in the semifinals for Greco-Roman wrestling at 75kg when his neck got trapped during a takedown attempt.

Vlasov continued to press the action perhaps not realizing that he was putting himself into be choked — accidentally or not — and when the two wrestlers rolled over and the period ended, the Russian was unconscious. The video can be seen here.

Vlasov was already up 6-0 in the match and he survived the second period to win 6-3 over his Croatian opponent.

Vlasov then moved onto the finals where he defeated Denmark's Mark Overgaard Madsen 3-1 to win the gold medal for Russia.

It probably didn't go down the way he expected it, but Vlasov is still going home with the gold medal, although he might want to work on his guillotine defense.

share