Yogeshwar and Narsingh seal World Wrestling Championships berth

London Olympic bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt and Narsingh Yadav today qualified for the World Wrestling Championships, even as injured Sushil Kumar missed the selection trials at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium today.

Yogeshwar, who got a bye in the initial round of Men’s 65kg Freestyle, fought hard before prevailing over Amit Kumar Dhankhar in the final round bout.

The bout that lasted six minutes, Yogeshwar won 6-3 to make it to World Championships to be held at Las Vegas from September 7-12, which will also be the first qualification tournament for next year’s Rio Olympics.

In 74kg category, which lost its sheen because of the absence of Sushil who recently sustained an injury to his right shoulder, Narsingh Yadav made the cut but not before surviving some anxious moments.

Narsingh faced Praveen Rana in the final bout, which was a closely-fought affair. Both wrestlers gave their best but in the end, Narsingh managed to have the last laugh as he eked out a narrow 6-5 win over his opponent to earn a World Championship berth.

There was another close battle in 57kg category, where Amit Kumar got the better of Sandeep Tomar. Trailing 1-2, Amit turned in around in the last three seconds to earn two points and seal off the issue 3-2 in his favour.

Naresh Kumar (86kg), Mausam Khatri (97kg) and Sumit (125kg) are the others to have booked their places. Sonu (61kg) and Arun (70kg) also won in their respective categories to make it to Las Vegas but their weight divisions are not a part of Olympic Games.

Following Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestlers have qualified for the World Championships:

Men’s Freestyle: 57kg: Amit Kumar (DEL) b Sandeep Tomar (SSCB) 3-2, 61kg: Sonu (HAR, SSCB) b Pardeep 3-2, 65kg: Yogeshwar Dutt (HAR) b Amit Dhankar (HAR) 6-3, 70kg: Arun (SSCB) vs Manoj (UP), Arun got walkover, 74kg: Narsingh Yadav (MAH) b Parveen Rana (RSPB) 6-5, 86kg: Naresh Kumar (RSPB) b Gopal Yadav (RSPB) 7-3, 97kg: Mausam Khatri (HAR) b Satywart Kadian (HAR) 6-0, 125kg: Sumit (RSPB) b Krishan (HAR) 2-0.

Greco-Roman: 59kg: Ravinder Singh (HAR) b Gaurav Sharma (SSCB) 2-0, 66kg: Deepak (SSCB) b Anil Kumar (RSPB) 3-0, 71kg: M Rafique (SSCB) b K K Yadav (SSCB) 3-2, 75kg: Gurpreet Singh (PB) b Rajbir Chhikara (RSPB) 3-1, 80kg: Harpreet Singh (PB) b Ravinder Khatri (SSCB) 1-0, 85kg: Manoj Kumar (HAR) b Rambir (RSPB) 8-0, 98kg: Hardeep (RSPB) b Bhim (SSCB) 3-0, 130kg: Naveen (SSCB) b Sonu (HAR) 8-0.

PTI