India's Manjeet bags bronze in UWW ranking series wrestling event in Kyrgyzstan

Manjeet (Pic: @SAI_Media/Twitter)

India's Manjeet clinched bronze in the men's Greco Roman 55kg category to open India's medal account in the UWW Ranking Series wrestling event on Thursday. He lost to Ikhtiyor Botirov of Uzbekistan in the quarterfinals with the latter notching up victory by superiority (VSU1, 13-4). But, since Botirov reached the final, Manjeet got a chance to fight for one of the two bronze medals.

The Indian beat Yersin Abyir of Kazakhstan 14-9 via VPO1 (winner with no technical superiority but the loser scores atleast 1 point) to grab a bronze on the opening day of competitions. Kazakhstan's Marlan Mukashev beat Botirov in the gold medal bout.

In 60kg, Sumit reached the repechage round where he lost to Balbai Dordokov of Kyrgyzstan. He had earlier lost to Nursultan Bazarbayev of Kazakhstan in the quarterfinals. Neeraj also lost in the repechage round in the 67kg class.

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Three other Indian wrestlers -- Sunil Kumar (87kg), Narinder Cheema (97kg) and Sahil (130kg), lost in the qualification stage.

Meanwhile, the world body has condemned the treatment meted out to India's top wrestlers during their protest in Jantar Mantar, stating it 'firmly condemns the treatment and detention of the wrestlers'. In an official statement, the world wrestling body said that for several months, United World Wrestling has followed with great concern the situation in India where wrestlers are protesting over allegations of abuse and harassment by the president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI). It has taken due note that the WFI President has been put aside at an early stage and is currently not in charge.

"UWW firmly condemns the treatment and detention of the wrestlers. It expresses its disappointment over the lack of results of the investigations so far. UWW urges the relevant authorities to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation into the allegations," read a statement by UWW.

(With PTI inputs)