Zhumanazarova climbs to No. 1 in UWW world rankings

A silver that still took her to the top

Meerim Zhumanazarova has climbed to the top of the United World Wrestling world rankings, turning a silver medal at the World Championships in Astana into the number one spot in the women's 68kg division. The updated rankings, published on the United World Wrestling website on 5 November, put the Kyrgyzstan star on 64,800 points after a tournament in which she fell one bout short of gold.

Zhumanazarova lost the final 4-3 to China's Jia Long on 29 October, in a contest decided by a single frantic scramble in the opening period. Long shot in on a double-leg takedown, Zhumanazarova countered for two points of her own, and Long then flipped her opponent once more to take a 4-3 lead she never surrendered. It was a narrow defeat, but the ranking points earned across the week in Astana were enough to lift Zhumanazarova above every other wrestler in her weight class.

The new ranking is a reward for consistency as much as for one week. Zhumanazarova won the world title at 68kg in 2021, took bronze at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, and won silver at the Paris Olympics in 2024, when she was beaten in the final by Amit Elor of the United States. She also won gold at the Asian Championships in Bishkek in April 2026, beating Japan's Miwa Morikawa 2-1 in the final. Few wrestlers in the division can match that record across five years, and the ranking now reflects it.

How Astana unfolded

Zhumanazarova's route to the final in Astana showed why she remains so difficult to beat. She opened by beating India's Srishti 5-1, then pinned the United States wrestler Kennedy Blades in the quarter-finals. Blades, the Paris Olympic silver medallist at 76kg, had dropped down to 68kg and would go on to take bronze. In the semi-final, Zhumanazarova beat Mongolia's Delgermaa Enkhsaikhan 5-1 to reach her second world final.

The final itself was the match of the weight class. Long, who had already won a world title after moving up through the divisions, needed time to settle at 68kg, and the final swung on the scramble that gave her the decisive points. Zhumanazarova, who had taken advantage of the early exit of defending champion Ami Ishii of Japan to reach the final, could not find a way back in the second period as Long held her position.

For Long, the gold confirmed her arrival as a genuine force at the weight. For Zhumanazarova, the silver added another major medal to a collection that already includes honours at every level of the sport, and the ranking points that came with it have now put her where she has not been before: first in the world.

A team on the rise

Zhumanazarova was not the only Kyrgyzstan wrestler to move sharply in the new rankings. Akzhol Makhmudov, the two-time world champion and two-time Olympic medallist, won bronze in the Greco-Roman 82kg division in Astana, beating China's Halishan Bahejiang 6-5 in the medal bout. He climbed 42 places to sixth in the world rankings, on 36,800 points.

Ernazar Akmataliev, who won silver in the freestyle 70kg division, held on to second place in his world ranking with 54,500 points. Kyrgyzstan finished the World Championships with five medals in total, two silver and three bronze, from a team of 22 athletes. The team placed fifth in the freestyle standings, tenth in the women's standings and fourteenth in Greco-Roman.

That return, achieved without a gold medal, underlines how deep the Kyrgyzstan squad has become. A nation that once relied on one or two stars now produces medallists across all three styles, and the rankings reward that breadth as surely as they reward individual champions.

What the ranking means on the road to Los Angeles

The timing of the new rankings matters. United World Wrestling has revised its ranking system for the cycle leading to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, with the changes taking effect on 1 January 2027. Three wrestlers in each Olympic weight category will earn their Olympic places through the rankings, and Ranking Series tournaments will carry more weight than continental championships in the new points structure.

The federation has also confirmed the hosts for its three Ranking Series events in 2027: Zagreb in Croatia from 1 to 7 February, Coralville in the United States from 31 May to 6 June, and Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia from 19 to 25 July. A further Ranking Series event is planned for 2028, although its host has not yet been announced.

For Zhumanazarova, the number one ranking is both a prize and a starting point. She will turn 27 on 9 November, and the next two years offer her a clear route to a third Olympic Games, this time as the wrestler everyone else in the 68kg division is chasing. The silver in Astana stung, but the ranking that followed it says something the final could not: over the full span of this cycle, no one at her weight has done more.