Armenian freestyle wrestler Mezhlum Mezhlumyan managed to become a bronze medalist at this year's European Championships. He stood on the podium together with Abasgadzhi Magomedov and Zelimkhan Abakarov, but knowing his history, one can hardly believe that he was able to achieve such heights without anyone's help.
Mezhlum started his sporting life from the age of 9. In 2016, he managed to win the bronze medal of the Armenian Championship for the first time. Thanks to that he participated in various international tournaments for the Armenian national team, but he did not become a medalist.
Since Mezhlum Mezhlumyan did not have a stable place in the Armenian national team, he failed to get a deferment and was drafted into the army. Mezhlum took part in the 44-day war in Artsakh in 2020.
After two years of such a difficult service in the army, many athletes would no longer think about returning to sports, as many have the goal to start earning money and get a higher education.
In addition, Mezhlum had a difficult financial situation in his family, which further prevented him from focusing only on sports. But our hero thought otherwise. The coaches saw in him the strength that no one else had, believed that he could return to the sport, achieve high results and somehow provide for himself. In the end, they were right.
In 2022 Mezhlum returned from the army, and in 2023 he was able to take a place in the national team of Armenia in the weight category up to 61 kg. At that time Arsen Harutyunyan - the main leader of this weight category was thinking about the Olympic weight up to 57 kg to prepare for the Olympic Games. Mezhum used this moment to the maximum, and was able to win the silver medal of the European Championship-U23 (2023), became the bronze medallist of the World Championship-U23 (2023), and in 2024 was able to impose competition with the strongest wrestlers of the world - won the bronze medal of the European Championship 2024.