Olympic Bronze medalist Makhach Murtazaliev was the youngest member of Russia's freestyle wrestling squad at the 2004 Olympics. Now he is eyeing a silver or maybe even a gold in Beijing.

His native town of Hasavert is known as the freestyle wrestling Mecca of the Caucasus.

Throughout the past several years, almost every tournament there has gone down in the city’s hall of fame.

Local Olympic Reserve training facility can barely fit in all the aspiring wrestlers, with the training running from 7am to 7pm, 7 days a week.

Makhach Murtazaliev goes twice a day, in the mourning and then again in the evening, and works out like everybody else.

“I started out here in 1995 and have been training here for all this time, everything's been the same,” Murtazaliev said.

In his spare time, Makhach mostly stays home reading books and surfing the web and this time is short since he has to combine sports and studying for his second degree.

A special wall of fame which displays all of Murtazaliev's silverware is now more than a 100 items and counting.

Murtazaliev's personal trainer Abdurahman Mirzoev was the one who spotted the prodigy among hundreds of others.

After winning the bronze in Athens four years ago, recent performances suggest the 24-year-old could go even higher on the podium in Bejing.