A little bit of history and a rewrite of some stale questions on Uzbek Olympic gold medallists. Will anyone ever ask about one of them?
Questions
Defeating Yuberjen Martínez in the final, who won Olympic gold for Uzbekistan in the men’s light flyweight in 2016? He was awarded the Val Barker Trophy for the best boxer at those Games, an award that has had illustrious winners like Vasiliy Lomachenko.
HASANBOY DUSMATOV
Spared by Genghis Khan’s Mongols when they ran riot in the rest of the city, which tall minaret is one of the stand out sights in Bukhara? Having a name that means ‘great’, this Uzbek tower with an associated mosque in also known as the ‘Tower of Death’ because criminals used to be thrown to their deaths from a gallery at its top.
KALYAN
Who won Olympic gold for Uzbekistan in the freestyle wrestling in 2004? He did have three gold medals, but was stripped of his 2008 and 2012 victories for doping, this not stopping him from being elected to the State Duma for North Ossetia.
ARTUR TAYMAZOV
A mausoleum that is seen as a precursor to Mughal buildings such as the Taj Mahal, Samarkand’s Gur-e Amir is the burial place of which historical figure?
TIMUR
Who was Uzbekistan’s first Olympic gold medallist, winning light welterweight gold in 2000? After winning his first 11 professional bouts it appeared that he was counted out in his 12th when he didn’t understand the referee’s count because it was in English.
MAHAMMATKODIR ABDOOLLAYEV / MUHAMMAD ABDULLAEV
Bukhara was the capital of which Persian empire that existed from 819 to 999? The unit of another country’s currency is derived from the dynasty’s name.
SAMANIDS (The currency being the Tajik somoni)
Also winning the 2019 World Championship in the same weight class, who won gold for Uzbekistan in men’s flyweight boxing at the 2016 Olympics when they defeated Russian Mikhail Aloyan in the final, a fighter who was stripped of his silver after testing positive for the stimulant tuaminoheptane?
SHAKHOBIDIN ZOIROV
Occurring supposedly as a result of the ‘Curse of Timur’, which unsuccessful invasion began two days after the remains of Timur were removed from the Samarkand mausoleum of Gur-e Amir?
OPERATION BARBAROSSA
Later that year spending more than a month in a coma after fracturing her skull, who won Uzbekistan’s only Winter Olympics medal, a gold in freestyle skiing in 1994? She died in 2019 at the age of 50.
LINA CHERYAZOVA
Timur’s remains were reinterred in the architectural marvel of Gur-e Amir shortly before the Russian victory at Stalingrad. How does the Persian name of this Samarkand mausoleum translate?
TOMB OF THE KING
His results from London being wiped following a doping violation, who won Olympic gold for Uzbekistan in the 2016 weightlifting? He set the clean & jerk world record in the 109 kg category on his way to securing the Asian Championship on home soil in 2020.
RUSLAN NURUDINOV
Later going on to reconstruct the face of Ivan the Terrible, which Russian archaeologist supposedly invoked the Curse of Timur when he opened the Mongol leader’s burial chamber in Samarkand?
MIKHAIL GERASIMOV
Matching his World Championship performance from a year earlier, which gymnast from Uzbekistan won men’s parallel bars bronze in 2008?
ANTON FOKIN
A rare Uzbek medal outside the combat sports, who won women’s trampolining bronze in 2008? She had just missed out four years earlier with a 4th place.
EKATERINA KHILKO
Who won Olympic gold for Uzbekistan in the Greco-Roman wrestling in 2004? Unusually he has won both the Asian and European Championships, the latter in 2001 when representing Georgia.
ALEXANDR DOKTURISHVILI
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