U-23 World Wrestling C’ships: Pooja wins silver; Sajan aims for bronze

TIL Desk Sports/ Pooja Gehlot (53kg) claimed India’s second silver medal after going down to Japan’s 2017 world champion Haruna Okuno in the finals of the UWW Under-23 World Championships in Budapest. Gehlot lost 0-2 to Okuno in the summit clash to emulate Ravinder (61kg), who also won a silver earlier this week.

Three-time World Junior Championships medallist Sajan Bhanwal (77kg), however, lost a close semi-final bout 4-5 to Japan’s Kodai Sakuraba. He will now fight for the bronze. A terrific Bhanwal had earlier blanked Jesse Alexander Porter 6-0 in the qualifiers to move into the pre-quarter-finals, where he notched up a 3-1 win over Azerbaijan’s Tunjay Vazirzade.

The unstoppable Bhanwal, one of the best Greco-Roman talents to have emerged from India, then rushed into the semi-finals on the back of a strong 6-2 win over Per Albin Olofsson of Sweden. Among other Greco-Roman results, Arjun Halakurki entered repechage even after his good run in 55kg came to an end in the quarter-finals when he narrowly went down 12-14 to Emin Narimanovitch Sefershaev of Russia.