Australian National Champion Asadbek Karimov Brings International Wrestling Experience to Highlands Sports Centre

Sep 10

3 min read

Highlands Sports Centre continues to build connections between the Southern Highlands wrestling community and high-level athletes from across Australia and around the world. One of the athletes becoming an important part of that environment is Asadbek Karimov — a talented young freestyle wrestler originally from Uzbekistan who is now building his sporting career and future in Australia.

Asadbek has already achieved significant results internationally. He was a bronze medallist at the 2023 U20 Asian Championships, followed by silver at the 2024 U20 Asian Championships, and has represented Uzbekistan at both World and Asian Championship level. Since moving to Australia, he has continued his development as a competitive athlete while becoming part of the Australian wrestling community.

In 2026, Asadbek joined Highlands Wrestling, and in July he achieved an important milestone: becoming the 2026 Australian National Champion in Senior Men’s Freestyle 79 kg while representing Highlands Wrestling. For a relatively young wrestling program in the Southern Highlands, having an athlete of Asadbek's level represent our club on the national stage was a proud moment and another important step in the development of wrestling in Southern Highlands.

From national champion to training partner and mentor

Asadbek's involvement at Highlands Sports Centre goes beyond competition. We believe young athletes benefit enormously from being exposed to different coaches, training partners, wrestling styles and experiences. Creating these opportunities is an important part of how we want wrestling at Highlands Sports Centre to develop.

On 15 August 2026, Asadbek delivered his first special training session at Highlands Sports Centre. The session gave our athletes an opportunity to learn directly from a wrestler who has developed through the highly competitive Uzbek wrestling system and competed internationally. Asadbek shared technical details, training concepts and his approach to freestyle wrestling while working directly with athletes on the mat. For our junior and developing wrestlers, experiences like this make high-performance sport feel much closer. Instead of simply watching international wrestling online, they can train with an Asian Championships medallist and Australian National Champion inside their own club in the Southern Highlands.

Special Wrestling Session – 5 September

Asadbek returned to our centre on 5 September to take part in our Special Wrestling Session, which brought together a strong group of wrestlers from Highlands Sports Centre and other parts of NSW.

The session was a great success and showed what we would like to see happening regularly at Highlands Sports Centre — athletes from different backgrounds and clubs coming together for quality training, challenging each other and exchanging knowledge. We were also very pleased to welcome the Tsakirakis brothers (Johnson and Santino) from AGOGE Wrestling to Highlands Sports Centre for the first time. Having visiting athletes join our members created a strong training room and gave everyone new partners, different styles and another level of challenge. This type of collaboration is important for the development of wrestling. Clubs can maintain their own identity while still creating opportunities for athletes to train together and help raise the overall standard of the sport in NSW and Australia in general.

Building a wrestling hub in the Southern Highlands

Highlands Sports Centre was created with a long-term vision for wrestling in our region. We want children in the Southern Highlands to have access to quality wrestling from their first session through to competitive and high-performance pathways. We also want experienced wrestlers, coaches and international athletes to see HSC as a place where they are welcome to train, exchange knowledge and contribute to the development of others.

Asadbek represents exactly the type of connection we want to build. He is pursuing his own ambitions as an athlete while also becoming part of the community around him. He trains with our members, represents Highlands Wrestling in competition and is willing to share the experience he has gained through international wrestling with younger Australian athletes. As Asadbek continues to establish his life and sporting career in Australia, we are proud that Highlands Sports Centre is part of his journey.

We look forward to having him involved in future seminars, special training sessions, competitions and athlete-development activities at our gym. And for our members, particularly the next generation coming through our junior wrestling programs, having athletes like Asadbek on the mat is another reminder that international-level wrestling does not have to feel far away.

Sometimes it is happening right here in the Southern Highlands.