Anyone who follows or is generally familiar with the Olympics is aware that certain countries are known for excellence in certain sports. China is great at diving. Russia is great at gymnastics. Jamaica is great at sprinting. The United States is great at basketball.

Then there are other countries that are notably solid in other sports, though not as famous for their success. For example, the Muslim-majority central Asian nation of Uzbekistan has been making its mark globally in the combat sports. Of the 86 athletes who will represent Uzbekistan at the upcoming Summer Games in Paris, 36 of them (41 percent) will compete in combat sports: seven wrestlers, 11 boxers, five in taekwondo, 12 in judo, and one fencer.

Ahead of the Olympics, which will run from July 26 to August 11, here are a few of the standout Uzbek athletes to watch in Paris:

Bakhodir Jalolov (boxing)

The reigning Olympic super-heavyweight gold medalist is coming back for seconds. Jalolov is a tall (6-foot-7) and rangy southpaw with one-punch knockout power who has mastered the amateur boxing style. In addition to his Tokyo Olympics title from 2021, he is a two-time gold medalist at the World Championships and a three-time Asian Championships winner. In 14 professional fights, the 30-year-old Jalolov is undefeated with 14 knockouts.

Hasanboy Dusmatov (boxing)

From the biggest Uzbek boxer to the smallest. The 5-foot-2 Dusmatov aims for his second Olympic gold medal in Paris, where he’ll be fighting in the flyweight division (114 pounds); in 2016 in Rio, he won gold at light flyweight (108 pounds), a division that’s been scrapped for the Paris Games. Just like the giant Jalolov, the diminutive Dusmatov is a three-time Asian Championships winner and undefeated as a pro (6-0, 5 KOs).

Diyora Keldiyorova (judo)

Keldiyorova has had a decorated career in martial arts — winning gold medals at the Asian Games and Asian Championships, silver at the World Championships, and bronze at the World Masters, to name a few — but she has yet to earn an Olympic medal, which she can check off the list in Paris. The 26-year-old judoka competes in the 114-pound division. In the International Judo Federation world rankings, she is currently No. 2 overall and No. 1 in her weight class.

Bekzod Abdurakhmonov (freestyle wrestling)

Before he was an Olympian and Asian Games gold medalist for Uzbekistan, Abdurakhmonov attended college in the U.S. and was a collegiate wrestling star at Penn West Clarion — the same school that produced Olympic gold medalist and pro wrestling legend Kurt Angle. When he’s not competing as a world-class wrestler, Abdurakhmonov is a pro MMA fighter; he’s 7-0 with seven stoppages across a handful of U.S.-based promotions. In his first discipline of freestyle wrestling, Abdurakhmonov claimed a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics in the 163-pound division; at 34 years old, Paris might be his last chance at Olympic gold.

Svetlana Osipova (taekwondo)

At 24 years old, Osipova has already collected gold medals from the taekwondo World Championships (2022), Islamic Solidarity Games (2022), and Military World Games (2019). She’ll be a medal contender at the Paris Olympics; in the current World Taekwondo rankings, Osipova sits at 8th in the 160-pound division.

Safina Sadullayeva

(high jump)

One of the better non-combat athletes on Team Uzbekistan that’s headed to Paris, Sadullayeva finished sixth in the women’s high jump at the Olympics in 2021, and fifth at the World Championships in 2022. Since those near-misses at the medal podium, she’s picked up gold medals at the Islamic Solidarity Games (2022) and the Asian Games (2023).

Akbar Djuraev (weightlifting)

The 24-year-old is the dominant force in international weightlifting’s 240-pound division. His reign began at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, when he claimed the gold medal and in the process set two Olympic records: a 522-pound clean & jerk, and a combined 947 pound in the clean & jerk, and the snatch. Later in 2021, Djuraev won gold at the World Championships in Uzbekistan; he then repeated as world champion in 2023 at the competition in Saudi Arabia. He enters the Paris Olympics as the favorite to win another gold medal, and could realistically challenge for a world record or two.