Yogeshwar and Narsingh book world championship berths
While Yogeshwar Dutt overcame a fighting Amit Kumar Dhankar of Haryana 6-3, Narsingh Yadav put it past Praveen Rana.
London Olympic bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt and Narsingh Yadav on Tuesday qualified for the world wrestling championships.
While Yogeshwar Dutt overcame a fighting Amit Kumar Dhankar of Haryana 6-3, Narsingh Yadav put it past Praveen Rana.
In the background of Amit Kumar going to court about the selection of the national team for the Commonwealth Games last year without the trials, there was tremendous interest in Yogeshwar’s bout and thousands turned up at the K.D. Jadhav wrestling arena at the Indira Gandhi Stadium.
Yogeshwar would have won by a bigger margin but was docked a point for an unsuccessful ‘review’ for full points, after he had lifted and thrown his opponent over his shoulder.
In the 74kg category Narsingh Yadav made the cut with a 6-5 closely-fought win over Praveen Rana. Sushil Kumar, who recently sustained an injury to his right shoulder and opted out of the World Championship, was on hand to witness the proceedings.
The 16-member team will first compete in a preparatory event in Kazakhstan. Sonu of Services has been selected only for the Kazakhstan event in freestyle, and will have a final trial against Commonwealth Games and world championship medallist Bajrang Kumar, who could not attend the trial owing to an injury.
The world championship will offer the first set of qualification berths for the Rio Olympics.
The team: Freestyle: Amit Kumar (57 kg), Sonu (61 kg), Yogeshwar Dutt (65 kg), Arun (70 kg), Narsingh Yadav (74 kg), Naresh Kumar (86 kg), Mausam Khatri (97 kg), Sumit (125 kg).
Greco Roman: Ravinder Singh (59 kg), Deepak (66 kg), M. Rafique (71 kg), Gurpreet Singh (75 kg), Harpreet Singh (80 kg), Manoj Kumar (85 kg), Hardeep (98 kg), Naveen (130 kg).
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