Ali Shabani

After winning the U23 Iranian World Team Trials,[5] Shabani made his international debut at the 2018 U23 World Championships, where he claimed a bronze medal.[3] In 2019, he competed at the World Championships (Reza Yazdani, who had beaten Shabani was forced to pull out of the event, and as Shabani had been the '19 IRI World Team Trials runner–up, he was a replacement), helped his homeland place first at the Clubs World Cup and also claimed silver from the Yasar Dogu.[6]

After the COVID-19 outbreak slowed down, Shabani competed at the Iranian World Team Trials in November 2020, in an attempt to qualify for the Individual World Cup. After notably defeating Mojtaba Goleij, he went on to violently upset the dominant Mohammad Hossein Mohammadian twice in a row to claim the spot, although he ended up not being sent to the Individual World Cup.[7]

To start off 2021, Shabani claimed the Asian Continental Championship.[2] Days before, Mohammadian qualified the weight for the 2020 Summer Olympics for Iran with a dominant run at the Asian Olympic Qualification Tournament.[8] The Iranian Wrestling Federation decided that the Poland Open (which took place on June 8) would decide the country's representative at the Summer Olympics, contested between Shabani, Alireza Karimi and Mohammad Hossein Mohammadian.[9][10] After wins over '19 World Championship medalist Magomedgadzhi Nurov and multiple–time Asian Championship medalist Alisher Yergali, he was defeated by Mohammad Hossein Mohammadian in a closely contested two–point final bout.[11] This result determined Mohammadian as the representative for Iran at the 2020 Summer Olympics.[12]