Wrestling
World Wrestling C'ships: Abhimanyu loses in quarter-finals
All Indian wrestlers competing as neutral athletes lost on the first day of ongoing UWW World Wrestling Championships.
Young wrestler Abhimanyu lost in the quarter-finals of the UWW World Wrestling Championships to second-seed Zain Rutherford of the USA on the first day in Belgrade, Serbia on Saturday.
The bronze-medal winner at the U23 Asian Championships in June, Abhimanyu stunned world number 7 Ihor Nykyforuk of Ukraine in the opening bout of the 70 kg category of men's freestyle.
Ranked number 26 in the world, Abhimanyu won by a margin of 19-9 affecting a victory by fall (VFA) as the referee stopped the with 19 seconds to go in the second half of the match.
In the pre-quarter-finals, Abhimanyu defeated Nicolai Grahmez 13-2 and dominated the bout.
Facing the second-seed Zain Rutherford in the quarter-finals, Abhimanyu lost 2-9. However, he has a chance of a medal through repechage if Zain wins the semi-finals and makes it to the gold medal match.
Apart from Abhimanyu, three other wrestlers were in action and all of them lost in the pre-quarterfinals.
In the 61 kg category, Akash Dahiya began on a winning note after defeating Leomid Colesnic of Moldova with a score of 10-5 in the first round.
Akash lost to 2021 Asian Championships gold medalist Uzbekistan's Jahongirmirza Turobov in the pre-quarterfinals by 7-4. Akash won't have a chance through repechage as Turobov lost in the quarter-final.
In the 86 kg category, Sandeep Mann defeated Dejan Mitrov of North Macedonia with a win by technical superiority 10-0 but suffered the same fate against Lin Zushen of China in the pre-quarterfinal.
Sumit Malik started with a close win against Taiki Yamamoto of Japan in the opening round of the 125 kg category. After defeating the Japanese, Sumit lost to Poland's Robert Baran in the pre-quarterfinal clash.
U-23 World Champion Aman Sehrawat will be in action tomorrow in the 57 kg category.
Due to the ban on the Wrestling Federation of India by the United World Wrestling, the Indian wrestlers are competing under the banner of UWW as netural athletes in the ongoing World Championships.
