New Delhi, Aug 5:
Two Indian Greco-Roman wrestlers — Manish and Sajan — today put up contrasting performances to enter the bronze-medal round of their respective weight categories in the Junior World Wrestling championships in Tampere, Finland.
While Manish (60kg) came up with a dominating show to advance to the bronze-medal round, Sajan (74kg) made the cut only after his 1/8 stage opponent from Kyrgyzstan reached the finals.
Manish won three bouts on the trot to storm into the semifinals of Greco-Roman 60kg.
Manish displayed consistent performance to defeat Gabin Kim of Korea, Seydylla Tazayev of Turkmenistan and Hungary’s Krisztian Istvan Vancza on his way to the last four stage.
However, he failed to maintain the momentum and went down to Keramat Morad Abdevali of Iran 1-3 in his semifinal bout.
Manish will now fight for a bronze medal with Hassan Ahmed Mohamed of Egypt in a third-fourth place match, scheduled later tonight.
Sajan, on the other hand, did not have an ideal start to his campaign as he lost his very first bout against Akzhol Makhmudov 2-10. But when the Kyrgyzstani grappler reached the gold medal round, Sajan got a chance to fight in repechage.
He had to fight two repechage rounds and the Indian beat both his rivals rather comfortably.
Sajan first got the better of Per Anders Kure of Norway 11-2 before outplaying Iran’s Mohammad Pareviz Neiazi 14-4 to make the bronze-medal round.
He will take on Ali Osman Erbay of Turkey.
However, it was curtains for the other two Indians Sagar (96kg) and Arjun Halakurki (50kg).
While Arjun lost in his opening round to exit the competition, Sagar managed to make the repechage round but failed to capitalise on the chance.
He lost to Amirmohammad Hosseinreza Noroozipasand of Iran 4-6 in his repechage bout. (PTI)
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