India’s Sajan claimed a bronze medal in the Greco-Roman category at the Junior World Wrestling Championships in Tampere, Finland. He defeated Turkey’s Ali Osman Erbay 6-1 in the third-fourth place match in the 74kg class to make the podium. He is the only Indian Greco-Roman wrestler to bag a medal at this championship, reported PTI.
Sajan did not have a good start to his campaign at the Championships as he lost his very first bout against Akzhol Makhmudov 2-10. But the Kyrgyzstani grappler reached the final to give the Indian a chance to fight in repechage round.
He had to fight two repechage rounds and won both comfortably. He first got the better of Per Anders Kure of Norway 11-2 before outplaying Iran’s Mohammad Pareviz Neiazi 14-4 to win the bronze medal.
However, another Indian, Manish (60kg) missed out on a third-place finish narrowly after he went down to Hassan Ahmed Mohamed of Egypt 3-4 in the bronze medal round.
Meanwhile, it was curtains for all other Indians in the fray. Vijay (55kg), Dinesh (66kg), Sunil Kumar (84kg) and Satish (120kg) all crashed out of the tournament after losing in the initial rounds of their respective bouts.
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