Sajan Bhanwal misses bronze as Ravi finds hope

India wrestler Sajan Bhanwal

Budapest: Three-time medallist Sajan Bhanwal (77kg) missed out on a bronze in Greco-Roman category, but Ravi (97kg) reached the repechage round at the U-23 Wrestling World Championships here on Sunday. Turkey's Serkan Akkoyun proved too strong for Bhanwal and won 10-1 by superiority in the bronze medal contest. Ravi was blanked 8-0 by Georgian grappler Giorgi Melia in the pre-quarter-finals, but, with the latter making it to the final, the Indian was presented with another chance to fight for a medal.

Ravi now needs to win just one bout in repechage to enter the bronze medal play-off on the final day of the competition. Among other results of the day, Arjun Halakurki lost his 55kg repechage bout 2-10 to Norayr Hakhoyan of Armenia. In 87kg, Sunil Kumar raised hopes of a bronze when he emerged victorious 5-3 in his first repechage bout against Aleksandar Georgije Stjepanetic of Sweden.

However, his hopes were dashed in the second repechage bout when Croatia's Ivan Huklek beat him 6-3. None of the other Indians could manage to win a round. In 60kg qualifiers, Sachin Rana was shown the door in a 5-2 win by China's Liguo Cao while Rahul was beaten 0-8 by Russia's Magomed Yarbilov in the same round of 72kg. Neeraj too failed to make any impact as he went down 1-10 to Serbia's Branko Kovacevic in the qualifying bout in 82kg. Ravinder (67kg) could not overcome the first hurdle as he was edged 2-1 by Haci Karakus of Turkey.

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