Eight-time world and Olympic freestyle wrestling champion Abdulrashid Sadulaev was denied a travel visa by the Croatian government. United World Wrestling has confirmed that he will not participate in the 2025 UWW Senior World Championships.

UWW has updated their seeding and entry lists for the men's freestyle competition, which begins Saturday, September 13, at 4:30 AM Eastern time, and which you can find here.

Although the Russian Wrestling Federation is still suspended by UWW, Sadulaev and other Russian wrestlers have been competing at sanctioned UWW events as neutral athletes and under a neutral flag. Sadulaev was last seen competing at the 2024 World Championships, which featured non-Olympic weight classes, where he won his sixth world gold medal, defeating the likes of David Taylor and Iran's Kamran Ghasempour before reaching the gold-medal match. 

Watch Sadulaev win gold in Albania last October:

Although sanctions related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has resulted in Russian teams and athletes being barred from competing in past events, notably the 2024 Paris Olympics, according to Russian news sources, this current visa denial would appear to be the result of a mismanaged application process that started before the 2024 European Championships, and Sadulaev was otherwise cleared to compete at the World Championships by UWW. 

Sadulaev is reportedly banned from traveling within Europe's Schengen Zone for the next 59 months, which would preclude him from competing in any events held in the majority of European countries. However, there is no reason to believe that Sadulaev would have difficulty competing in European countries outside the Schengen Zone, such as Albania, or in other parts of the world. 

The seeds at 97kg do not change, as Sadulaev earned no 97kg seeding points at the 2024 World Championships, as he won the 92kg weight class, and UWW seeding points do not transfer weights. He also did not participate in any other tournaments that earned seeding points in 2024 or 2025, thus, he would have been randomly drawn into the bracket. 

Kyle Snyder remains the #3 seed in the 97kg bracket and is a strong contender in a still-loaded division, which includes defending world and Olympic champion Akhmed Tazhudinov of Bahrain. The replacement for the Russian team competing as neutral athletes is Magomed Kurbanov, the 2025 European silver medalist at 97kg, who also has two other 92kg medals from Euros. 

Action in the 97kg freestyle weight class begins Monday, September 15, at 4:30 AM Eastern and the medal matches are scheduled to begin on Tuesday, September 16, at 12:00 PM Eastern.