Successes and failures in Azerbaijani sports A review of 2024 on Caliber.Az

The year 2024, the so-called Olympic year, is coming to a close. A year that brought positive emotions to Azerbaijani fans and sports enthusiasts. A year that will be remembered, unfortunately, not only for the successes but also for some inexplicable and, at times, quite predictable failures in certain sports.

Today, Caliber.Az will reflect on both the successes and the failures in our traditional annual sports nominations.

Achievement of the Year

Here, we have two winners – the Olympic champion, who became the European and World Champion in the same year, judoka Hidayat Heydarov, and Greco-Roman wrestler Eldaniz Azizli, who set a unique achievement for Azerbaijani wrestlers by becoming a four-time world champion!

Moreover, Eldaniz, who did not qualify for the Olympic Games because his weight category (55 kg) is not Olympic, won all four gold medals while competing in the same weight class (in 2018, 2022-2024). As for Hidayat, he is the first Azerbaijani athlete to achieve such a remarkable hat-trick in a single calendar year!

Champions of the Year

Here, we also have dual winners, as both nominees became Olympic champions. In addition to the aforementioned Hidayat Heydarov (73 kg), there is another judoka – Zelim Kotsoiev (100 kg), who became the World Champion in 2024 as well!

The title of Olympic Champion, as we know, is the highest sporting title and the only one that cannot have the prefix "ex"…

Athletes of the Year

Among the men, there is no avoiding Hidayat Heydarov, who, with remarkable consistency, competed in EVERY sports tournament in 2024.

As for the women, our indisputable winner is chess player Ulviyya Fataliyeva, who became the first-ever European Women’s Chess Champion in Azerbaijan’s history! I should note that Ulviyya, at 28 years old, has been on a continuous rise – in 2022, she earned a bronze medal at the European Championship, and in 2023, she was the silver medalist at the European Team Championship.

Federation of the Year

Given the stellar performances of our "masters of the mat" at nearly all tournaments and in all age categories, the winner in this nomination is also indisputable – the Azerbaijan Judo Federation, which, in a short period of time, has been able to achieve a series of unique accomplishments in Azerbaijani judo, both among the youth and adults.

Sports Club of the Year

This, of course, goes to the Neftchi Sports Club, which, unlike its football counterpart, was at the top in almost every tournament it participated in during the past year, including World and European Championships and the Olympic Games. It is enough to mention that one of the many titled graduates of the club is Hidayat Heydarov.

Failure of the Year

Here, the winner is indisputable – the Azerbaijan national football team. A team that has never been considered world-class managed to perform so poorly in the Nations League that it was relegated to the weakest Group D – it couldn’t get any worse! In doing so, the players under Santos demonstrated the worst result in the entire history of our national team.

Event of the Year

Azerbaijan hosted numerous sports tournaments of various levels, but undoubtedly the most significant event (at least for us as citizens of the country) was the ultra-marathon from Khankendi to Baku, featuring both local and international marathoners. With all due respect to the organization of other competitions, this race can certainly be called the event of the year in Azerbaijan's sporting life.

Disappointment of the Year

In this category, there are two winners: on one hand, our gymnasts Nikita Simonov and Ivan Tikhonov, who, despite all the support from the Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation, failed to earn an Olympic license for Paris.

On the other hand, Azerbaijani wrestlers from both styles, who had qualified for Paris with a very impressive team, performed poorly. Agree, three bronze medals is far from the result we expected from them.

Hope of the Year

Here, the masters of the mat again dominate.

19-year-old Fidan Alizada won our nomination, having secured gold medals at the U-20 and U-23 European Youth Championships in September and November, respectively. These victories give us great reason to believe that Fidan will not fade into the background in adult judo and will soon become a leader of the women’s national team.

Among the men, the winner of our nomination is 17-year-old Nihad Mamishov, who, as the World Junior Champion in the 50 kg category, repeated his success this year in the 55 kg category, becoming the first Azerbaijani to win two Junior World Judo Championships titles.

Vugar Vugarli, for Caliber.Az