The name of Mehman Azizov is well known to fans of Azerbaijani judo. A participant in three Olympic Games, first as an athlete and later as a coach of the national team, and now a police lieutenant colonel, he proved to be a very interesting and sincere interlocutor.
In an interview with Idman.Biz, he revealed intriguing details about some events from past years.
– We have not heard much about you for a long time. What is a three-time Olympian and former coach of the Azerbaijan national team doing now?
– I work in the sports society of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and hold the position of head of one of the departments.
– Does that mean you have moved away from judo?
– Not from judo, but from the national team. I will probably never move away from judo. Judo is a disease you cannot be cured of. After work, I train children and teenagers at the "Kono" club. It is the club of my coach Ibad Shabanov.
– Was not Asif Askerov, who is now a member of the Milli Majlis, your coach?
– Asif Askerov was my personal coach, while Ibad Shabanov worked with me in the national team.
– Do you still keep in touch with Asif Askerov?
– Of course. We sometimes meet at various events.
– You said you will never move away from judo. Can you name the happiest day connected with this sport?
– Yes, I can. It was the day when I became the silver medalist of the European Championship. In the final, I lost to the very experienced Hungarian Bartalan Hajtós, who was 11 years older than me. I was the only member of our team to win a medal at that championship. Before that, Azerbaijani judokas had last won a medal at the European Championships back in 1994, when Tarlan Poladov claimed silver.
No one believed that I could succeed. I was included in the national team almost at the last moment. That is why this medal is more valuable to me than gold.
– However, luck often seemed to be against you in judo. You were constantly either a medalist or just one step away from the podium at the highest-level tournaments, but never became a champion. The same Hajtós, after defeating you, won his second European title 12 years after his first. You qualified for the Olympic Games three times but missed out on a medal there as well, losing it at the very last moment. What was missing?
– Probably sporting luck. But I regret nothing. Everything I have in this life, I earned thanks to my favorite sport.
– But you seem to have plenty of family happiness.
– That depends on how you look at it. If we talk about my parents, I lost my father when I was 13. I console myself with the fact that he managed to see my first training sessions. He was a drilling master and died in an explosion at one of the drilling platforms in the Caspian Sea back in Soviet times, in 1989.
Three years ago, within the space of three months, I first lost my sister and then my mother. But I am glad they saw my performances, supported me, saw how I grew into a national team coach, and stayed with me longer than my father did.
As for my wife and children, yes, I am happy. I have a wonderful wife and three great children. My eldest son graduated from the University of Economics with honors, the younger one is studying for a master’s degree, and my daughter is studying at a college of the oil industry.
– You spoke about the happiest day of your career. What was the most unfortunate moment, both as an athlete and as a coach?
– I think it was the day when I lost the bronze medal bout at the 2004 Olympic Games to Russian judoka Dmitry Nosov.
– The same athlete who was later awarded the title "Hero of Russia" for supposedly fighting against you with a broken arm? More than 20 years later, can you honestly say whether he really fought with a broken arm?
– A broken arm would be hanging down, and that was not the case with him. His arm was injured, yes, but it was not broken. So he won more because of my mercy, because throughout the entire bout I did not attack his injured arm.
– Why didn’t the international press write about this? Why weren’t you nominated for the Fair Play Award, the International Fair Play Prize? After all, the whole world knows about the act of Egyptian judoka Mohamed Ali Rashwan, who refused to attack the injured Japanese fighter Yasuhiro Yamashita in the final of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and won the silver medal. Yet only a few people know about your act.
– Because I did not publicize it and spoke very little about it. Besides, Nosov was immediately elevated to the status of a hero. I gave him the opportunity to enjoy his success. What is wrong with that?
– You could say you gave him a gift he would remember for the rest of his life. Has anyone ever given you such gifts that you still remember?
– When I was 14, my first coach Adil Aliyev gave me a judogi. You cannot imagine how happy I was at that moment. Before that, I only had very worn-out, sometimes torn judogis that I received from other boys, because we simply could not afford to buy a new one. I wore that judogi for a long time only at competitions.
In general, the best gifts in my life are my friends. Those who come to my birthdays and wait for January 1 not as the first day of the new year, but as a friend’s birthday, which you yourself have witnessed more than once.
Vugar Vugarly
