Tato Grigalashvili made history for Georgia when he won his third world title, in 2024. He extended that record at the 2026 Baku World Championships in a hard-fought battle for gold.
His focus now is on the Olympics. “Everything in this whole four-year cycle is aiming at the Los Angeles Olympic Games. At my first Games, in Tokyo, I was only thinking about gold. With those thoughts, I lost not only the chance to win gold but even the bronze; I placed fifth. In Paris, three years later, I was more satisfied with the outcome. I made it to the final and would go home with a medal.”
Still, he had not achieved what he was aiming for, the so-called Triple Crown for European players, which is the Europeans, the World’s and the Olympics. This was something Hidayat Heydarov (AZE) managed to do in 2024, and Grigalashvili had wanted to achieve the same thing.
“At each event I was a day behind him. I had the first two golds (European’s and World’s) and was preparing to do the same as him,” Grigalashvili told the IJF. “I just missed out… I was disappointed that I couldn’t quite do it. The period was so short around these three events. It was a unique chance to have all three titles. Maybe some athletes look to win all three during their whole career but I saw this short period of a few months as a big chance.”
Some critics might say that his World title this year was achieved because his main rival, Timur Arbuzov (RUS) did not compete (Arbuzov had moved up a weight class). Grigalashvili acknowledges that Arbuzov would have been his main challenge if he had competed in Baku. 
“Against Arbuzov, I lost three times in big finals: The 2025 Europeans, the 2025 World Championships and this year’s European’s. Of course, he would be the main rival for me and I was preparing for a fight with him.”
Grigalashvili said in an interview with the IJF that he believed his preparation this time would have allowed him to overcome Arbuzov. “Before those finals that I lost, I was preparing in a totally different way from the way I am now,” he said. “We had some changes in Georgia, our head coach moved on and the new coach comes with a different way. This changes our approach. We are going in a different direction now and we start to prepare for competitions differently.”
He added: "If Arbuzov had been here, I would have the same confidence as I did without him. I would still have had the right focus, I was ready. It doesn’t matter who is standing in front of me when I know I have done the right work. Maybe even more effort would have been needed, more energy, a lot of focus is needed to fight him, but I was ready.”
Arbuzov’s absence didn’t mean Grigalashvili had it easy. His final match against Zelim Tckaev (AZE) went into Golden Score and both men looked like they could barely stand up when a counter by Grigalashvili won him the gold.
Tckaev was clearly devastated by his defeat before his home crowd but something he said after the match endeared him to Grigalashvili.
“It was later that I saw Zelim Tckaev commenting in an interview in a really honest and open way,” Grigalashvili recalled. “He said that I was better than him on the day and that there are no excuses. I really appreciated this. I want to say to him that I have a lot of respect for him and for what he said. We were so close in the final and maybe just a tiny element of preparation made the difference. He is a good man and I think we will be better friends going forward. He is my brother in the sport now.”
