CPOY 77 Domestic Picture Story Award of Excellence: Becoming a Khabib
A narrative picture story or thematic essay photographed in your home country that either reports on significant events, celebrates life, portrays sport or explores environmental, social, economic or political topics.
Caption
Slide 1 of 10
September 6, 2021
Coach's son Taqi (red singlet with white stripes) wrestles his teammate, while others split their attention between multiple fights in the end-of-practice contest, in the wrestling gym in Darvag. The gym walls feature portraits of Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov, Khabib Nurmagomedov's father (on the right), and Imam Shamil, a political, military, and spiritual leader of Muslim Caucasian resistance to Imperial Russia in the 1800s. Darvag is a monoethnic village located in the southern part of Republic of Dagestan. Having around 3000 inhabitants, all of Azerbaijani ethnicity, it, like many other villages in Dagestan, has a wrestling club. Darvag and its gym attracts not only locals, but children athletes from several other villages because of a strong coach and civil enthusiast Kavkaz Madayev. Their attendance varies from approximately once a month — in order to get acquainted with a range of competitors, to several times a week, as their standard training.