Bronze for Aden in U20 World Champs

CNMI son and hotshot wrestler Aden Attao has notched another achievement on his ever-growing long list of accolades with a bronze medal finish in the U20 World Championships 2024 that was held in Pontevedra, Spain from Sept. 2 to 8.

Attao fought his way to the bronze medal matchup of the Greco-Roman 130-kg division and faced off against Aleksandr Melekhov. There, he was initially down, 0-3, but the 19-year-old gathered all his strength and hit a body lock throw and pinned Melekhov to secure his spot on the podium.

The Oregon State University Beaver started the tourney off with a loss in the qualifying rounds against Laszlo Darabos, 0-9, then had to battle his way in the repechage to reach the bronze medal round.

In the repechage, he first won over Turkey’s Cemal Bakir in a close matchup, then secured his spot in the medal round after a dominating, 8-0 win over Ethan Vergara.

Gold went to Daraboz, while silver was Abolfazl Fathitazangi.

With his bronze medal finish, Attao helped Team USA to a sixth-place finish in the Greco-Roman portion—the best finish since 2019. He was then named USA Wrestling’s Athlete of the Week.

Attao, who, before this event won gold in the 2024 U20 Pan-Am Wrestling Championships in Lima, Peru that was held last July, said that the tourney was “an awesome experience and I’m super glad I had the opportunity to wrestle in it.”

On his podium finish, he said, “I had this overwhelming joy and excitement when I got my medal. I [have] dealt with adversity recently and I just am proud and happy of myself for working through the adversity and getting the medal and proving that I can work through things and still wrestle at a top level. I wrestled [well], so I’m just proud of putting on the line with my injury and still proving why I’m one of the top wrestlers.”

He said that the toughest competitor was the Hungarian Darabos, as he was “so good strategically and really good at holding positions. But other than him it would have to be the guy from Turkey. We were in an absolute dogfight the whole match and it was an entertaining match that I had won on criteria; he was just strong and good at holding position.”

Once he gets back to the states, Attao said will rehab and recover and get ready for the U23 World Championships in Tirana, Albania this October.

Aden is the son of Jesse Attao and Stacey Hammar, and the grandson of Jesus and Ramona Attao of Navy Hill.