Radovan Valach (born 21 March 1976) is a retired amateur Austrian freestyle wrestler, who competed in the men's heavyweight category. He finished ninth in the 96-kg division at the

2003 World Wrestling Championships The following is the final results of the 2003 World Wrestling Championships. The Freestyle Competition was held in New York City, United States, while the Greco-Roman Competition was held in Créteil, France. Medal table Team ranking Medal su ...

New York City, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, United States, and later represented his nation

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

at the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics ( el, Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 2004, ), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad ( el, Αγώνες της 28ης Ολυμπιάδας, ) and also known as Athens 2004 ( el, Αθήνα 2004), ...

. Throughout his sporting career, Valach trained full-time for AC Wals Wrestling Club in

Wals-Siezenheim Wals-Siezenheim () is a municipality in the district of Salzburg-Umgebung (''Flachgau'') in the Austrian state of Salzburg. The double municipality had been founded in 1948 of the places Wals and Siezenheim. In the same year the arm had been confe ...

, under his personal coach Georg Neumaier. Being born in the former

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, Valach also holds a dual citizenship with

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

to compete in numerous wrestling tournaments. Valach qualified for his naturalized Austrian squad in the men's 96 kg class at the

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

by receiving a berth and placing ninth from the World Championships. Valach was easily overwhelmed by U.S. wrestler

Daniel Cormier Daniel Ryan Cormier (; born March 20, 1979) is an American former professional mixed martial artist, amateur wrestler, and current commentator for the UFC. He is a former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight Ch ...

on his opening match 0–9, and could not recover his form to wrestle Poland's Bartłomiej Bartnicki at 1–4, leaving him on the bottom of the prelim pool and finishing nineteenth overall in the final standings.

References

External links

* 1976 births Living people Austrian male sport wrestlers Olympic wrestlers for Austria Wrestlers at the 2004 Summer Olympics Austrian people of Slovak descent Sportspeople from Trenčín {{Austria-wrestling-bio-stub