Updated November 2nd, 2019 at 00:15 IST

Pooja wins silver; Sajan aims for bronze at U-23 World Championships

Pooja Gehlot won India’s second silver medal from the Under-23 World Championships 2019 in Budapest, Hungary on Friday after going down to Japanese Haruna Okuno

Reported by: Suman Ray
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Pooja Gehlot (53kg) won India’s second silver medal from the Under-23 World Championships 2019 in Budapest, Hungary on Friday after going down 0-2 to Japan’s 2017 world champion Haruna Okuno. Gehlot emulated freestyle expert Ravinder (61kg)’s feat, who also won a silver medal earlier this week.

READ | Pooja Gehlot In 53kg Final Of Under-23 World Wrestling Championship

Sanjay Bhanwal fights for bronze

Meanwhile, three-time World Junior Wrestling Championships medallist Sajan Bhanwal (77kg) lost a close semi-final bout 4-5 to Japan’s Kodai Sakuraba. He will now fight for the bronze on Saturday. 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 some of the 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.

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Halakurki gets another chance

But with the Russian making it to the summit showdown, Halakurki got another chance. Earlier he had beaten Giovanni Freni of Italy 13-9 in the qualifiers and Sebastian Kolompar of Serbia 9-0 in the pre-quarter-finals. Sunil Kumar advanced from the 87kg qualifiers to the pre-quarter-finals by sheer dint of his 7-2 victory over Algeria’s Sid Azara. In the next round, he was shown the door by Ukraine’s Semen Novikov in a 0-8 loss.

In 63kg, Ranjeet had it tough against top seed Slavik Galstyan and went down 0-8 in his opening bout. In 130kg, Deepak Poonia could not make much of an impact and succumbed to a 1-6 defeat at the hands of USA’s David Tate Orndorff in the qualification round.

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Published November 1st, 2019 at 23:51 IST