Bajrang wins bronze medal in World Wrestling championship

A day after Asian Champion Amit Kumar won silver by storming into the finals of the 55kg category on the opening day, another wrestler Bajrang too made the country proud by winning a bronze in the 60kg category at the World Wrestling Championships on Tuesday.

Budapest: India's impressive show at the World Wrestling Championships continued as Bajrang bagged a bronze medal in the 60kg freestyle category with an overwhelming 9-2 win over Mangolia's Nyam-Ochir Enkhsaikhan, here on Tuesday.

Amit Kumar had won a silver yesterday and it is first time that India have won two medals in the men's events at the World Championships level. It was Nyam-Ochir who got a good start with a take down but 20-year-old Bajrang came back in the final seconds of the first period, pushing his his opponent out the mat to level the scores 2-2. From then on it was no looking back as Bajrang showed his technical prowess over the Mongolian and made several attacking moves including single leg take down and back hold to seal the tie in his favour. Early in the day, Bajrang had lost 0-7 to Vladimir Dubov of Bulgaria but luck smiled on him and he jumped back to contention when Dubov reached the final. He did exceedingly well in the repechage round, defeating Shogo Maeda of Japan and Ivan Guidea of Romania before getting the better of Enkhsaikhan in the bronze-medal bout. Bajrang's performance light up India's day as Pawan Kumar (84kg) and Hitender (120kg) had made early exits from the competition. The Haryana grappler, who began his senior career with a bronze in Asian Championships in April, romped over Maeda and went to register a comprehensive 10-3 victory over Guidea to book a place in the medal bout at the Papp Laszlo Sports Arena. London Olympics bronze medallist Yogeshwar, present at the ongoing championships, is not taking part due to a knee injury. While Hitender faced a 0-8 defeat at the hands of Georgia's Geno Petriashvili in a one-sided affair, Pawan too suffered defeat in the opening bout but not before putting up a close fight (8-9) against Feng Zhang of China after both the Indians were granted bye in the first round. In the 84kg tie, Pawan played catch up to China's Zhang after he conceded early points and trailed 0-4. The Indian bounced back to collect three points through a take down before his opponent extended his lead. Trailing 5-9, Pawan bagged three points in the dying moments to give his opponent a scare but the clock ran out for the Indian. Hitender meekly surrendered to World Junior Championships winner Petriashvili to crash out of the heavy weight category. PTI