Sanju Devi and Bhateri clinch silver medals at Junior Wrestling World Championships

Team India's junior wrestlers on Friday, 20 August 2021, continued to impress the world as women grapplers Sanju Devi and Bhateri won silver medals in the 62kg and 65kg category respectively at the Junior Wrestling World Championships, in Ufa, Russia. However, a gold medal at the Junior Wrestling World Championships remained elusive for Team India.

In the women's 62 kg final Sanju Devi was thoroughly dominated by Alina Kasabieva and the Russian won the gold via technical superiority. The European junior champion never gave any chance to the Indian to gain any momentum and influenced the bout from the word go. Later, in the women's 65 kg final Bhateri also won silver as she was defeated 2-12 by Irina Ringaci from Moldova. The Indian wrestler was looking to stage a comeback in the second period of the bout but the senior European champion countered her beautifully to clinch the gold.

On Thursday, Sanju made a remarkable comeback as she was down 0-5 and then eventually won against Azerbaijan's Birgul Soltanova by 8-5 in the semi-final while Bhateri defeated Tunisia's Jlassi Khadija and Romania's Amina Roxana Capezan to reach the title match.

This was India's 4th silver Junior Wrestling World Championships in Ufa. Bipasha (76kg) had won a silver while Simran (50kg) and Sito (55kg) won bronze medals on Thursday, 19 August 2021. Meanwhile, the women's wrestling at the Junior World Championships came to an end for India with three silver and two bronze medals.

In the last medal bout for Indian women's wrestlers, Saneh(72kg) suffered a horrific knee injury while playing for the bronze against Russia's Mariam Guseinova. It was a closely contested bout until Saneh faced injury. 

Men's Team at Junior World Wrestling Championship

Men's freestyle wrestlers won six medals with one silvers and five bronze. On August 18, wrestler Anirudh Kumar picked up the bronze medal after he beat Azerbaijan's Aydin Ahmadov in the 125 kg category by an impressive score of 7-2 at the World Junior Wrestling Championship 2021. 

On the other hand, Ravinder earned a silver medal for India in the 61kg Men's final in Ufa. Ravinder finished second at the table after getting defeated 3-9 by Iranian Grappler Rahman Amouzad. Ravinder earlier stormed into the finals by defeating Armenia’s Levik Mikayelyan in the semi-finals. 

(Image Credits: @Media_SAI)