Services dominate U-23 wrestling championship in Greco-Roman category

All 10 Greco-Roman wrestlers, who won gold in the Tata Motors Under-23 Junior National Wrestling Championship, made the cut for the under-23 World Championships to be held in Romania, between November 12 and 16.

The event, which kicked off at the packed Gora Badi Indoor Stadium on Friday, saw wrestlers from the Services dominating and winning the team championships with 190 points while Haryana finished on 172 points to take the second spot, leaving Delhi with the third position on the table with 146 points.

Of the 10 gold medals on offer in as many categories, Services and Haryana shared four each but the former had three silver and two bronze medals to boost their top-podium finish.

 

Haryana, on the other hand, had no silver to show but just four bronze medals from the remaining bouts.

Delhi, despite winning four silver medals, couldn't upstage Haryana because they had just one gold in the 82 kg category. The other gold went the way of Chandigarh in 130 kg.

Haryana opened the day well with Sajan Bhanwal defeating Maharashtra's Shivaji in the final in the 77 kg category, taking just 40 seconds.

But the 60 kg final saw Manish from the Services winning on points (10-4) against Sunny Yadav from Madhya Pradesh. Meanwhile in the 63 kg category, Haryana's Rajeet defeated Sonu of the Services 3-1 in a tight final.

In the 55 kg final, Ravin from Haryana held sway over Delhi's Manoj. The one-sided final saw the Haryana wrestler winning 9-1. It was not Delhi's day as yet another Haryana mat man, Ravinder, proved his superiority blanking out Sourav from Delhi 9-0.

The other Services men to win the bouts included Ajay in 72 kg. He defeated Delhi's Arun, Sunil in 87 kg downed Deepak, also from Delhi, while Deepanshu claimed the 97 kg gold, beating his Maharashtra rival Harshvardhan on points.

Apart from the Services and Haryana, the other states that shared the bronze medals included Uttar Pradesh (Lokesh and Yatender), Paras (Himachal Pradesh), Lal Singh (Punjab), Sumit Tomar (Delhi) and Ashok Kumar (Rajasthan).

The championship, which was held for the first time to scout talent, was inaugurated by Brij Bhushan Saran, President of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) and C.P. Joshi, Member of Parliament from Chittorgarh.

--IANS

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