Wrestling might not be the first sport that comes to mind for Champaign, Ill., but the Illinois Regional Training Center works to support wrestlers from across the globe.
In addition to hosting training camps for families in the community, the center also hosts elite athletes like Ermak Kardanov, from North Ossetia-Alania, Russia.
Kardanov joined the Illinois RTC at the end of 2022, roughly a year before competing in the 2023 European Championships, where he won a bronze medal for Slovakia.
Since this achievement over two years ago, Kardanov continues to practice daily in Champaign in hopes of making it to the Olympics — a popular goal among wrestlers with the training center, according to the facility’s website.
Kardanov’s own Olympic aspirations are directly rooted in his familial history. His uncle, Arsen Fadzayev, was a two-time Olympic champion in wrestling and dubbed “the world’s dominant freestyle lightweight wrestler during the 1980s” by the committee itself.
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“(My dad) wanted me to be like (my uncle), because he was always looking up to him,” Kardanov said. “It was his dream to have a son who is also a big wrestler. Now it’s my goal, my dream, to make it happen for my dad, to make him happy.”
Although Kardanov now describes wrestling as the focal point of his life, he said he initially dreamed of being a soccer player before he began training in martial arts.
According to Kardanov, his father asked him what sport he wanted to decide to focus on when he was only six years old. When Kardanov said he really wanted to play soccer, his dad said, “Okay,” only to drive him to wrestling training instead of soccer practice the very next morning.
“He just asked me for no reason and did what he wanted to do,” Kardanov said, laughing. “That’s how it works in Russia.”
Illinois RTC head coach Bryan Medlin played a key part in getting Kardanov to wrestle in the United States initially. The pair met when Kardanov was only about 15 years old, in his home province of North Ossetia-Alania, Russia.
“It was just a kid in a room full of these elite athletes,” Medlin said. “Obviously, his style of wrestling is very pleasing to watch, but more than that, he was always smiling, he was always very pleasant (and) a very good person.”
Medlin said that Kardanov’s excellent attitude and honorable nature made him a key wrestler to enter discussions surrounding bringing in international athletes when the RTC began exploring the idea.
Obtaining a visa for Kardanov was one of the most difficult portions of this life-changing process, according to Medlin.
“We’re pretty blessed in America to be able to travel wherever we want to,” Medlin said. “But at the time, the Ukraine war had just started, and it was pretty difficult for these Russian people to get anywhere. I wanted to make sure that (Ermak) wasn’t going to be going to war or anything like that. This was a kid that I had committed to.”
Kardanov said that the road to getting approved to wrestle in Slovakia was similarly challenging. He compared his experience to that of Mahamedkhabib Kadzimahamedau, his longtime friend and wrestling partner of Khabib Nurmagomedov, the UFC’s longest-reigning lightweight champion.
Kadzimahamedau now wrestles for Belarus, which Kardanov described as a “friendly” country, making his citizenship process smoother.
Despite Russia’s political scene making mobility more challenging for wrestlers, Caucasus regions like North Ossetia-Alania and Dagestan, where Kadzimahamedau is from, remain known for rigorous and effective martial arts training processes.
“Here, wrestling is about winning and losing as a whole,” Medlin said. “But over there, they’ve used it as a model for citizenship, and to teach a young man about manhood or a young woman about womanhood.”
Formal education and job opportunities are also somewhat more difficult to come by in the Caucasus region, according to Medlin, which makes athletics a popular track.
Medlin said that Kardanov has had multiple opportunities to leave the Illinois RTC to train elsewhere, potentially even for more money, yet he has remained with the facility over the years.
“He’s a very honor-driven person; he wouldn’t do anything dishonorable if you paid him a million dollars,” Medlin said. “He’s been very beneficial for all the athletes he’s been in contact with here, and even (with) the coaches and the way we view the sport, he’s helped change it for the better.”
After three years in the United States, Kardanov said that Illinois is the best place he can be to improve his skills. His next goal: to bring a world title to Champaign.
