Aman, Akash, Anuj win wrestling trials for world championship

Sehrawat dominated the men’s 57kg free-style category to make the World Championships squad even as veteran Olympian Deepak Punia skipped the national trials here on Saturday. Aman secured double happiness for himself this year by defeating Aatish Todkar in the final of the trials. Akash Dahiya will represent India in 61kg after getting the better of Neeraj, while Anuj Kumar will be seen posing a challenge in the 65kg category. Olympic medalist Bajrang Punia has been representing the country for a long time in this weight category. Bajrang had already decided to skip the World Trials to train abroad for the Asian Games. Apart from Bajrang, his close aide Jitendra Kinha, Satyavrat Kadian, husband of Olympic medalist Sakshi Malik, did not take part in the trial.

All these wrestlers staged a sit-in at Jantar Mantar demanding the arrest of outgoing WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. Vishal Kaliraman (65kg) was the biggest disappointment in the trials. He failed to replicate his Asian Games trial result here. This almost shattered his dream of representing the country in both the Asian Games and the World Championships. Kaliraman is a standby player for the Asian Games and will get a chance to represent the country if Bajrang pulls out of the tournament. Bajrang on Thursday said he would pull out of the Asian Games if all the panchayats that supported him during the protests at Jantar Mantar ask him to pull out of the Asian Games during the khap mahapanchayat on September 10. In other bouts, Abhimanyu defeated Mulayam Yadav to book a place in the World Championships in 70kg, while Naveen defeated Sagar Jaglan to win the 74kg trials.

Sachin More beat Rohit Gulia in the 79kg men’s freestyle to book a ticket to Budapest. World Championship silver medalist and Birmingham Commonwealth Games gold-winner Deepak also did not take part in the trials in the 86kg category. The Sports Authority of India allowed him to train abroad to prepare for the Asian Games. In the absence of Deepak, Sandeep Singh defeated Jonty Kumar in the 86 kg trials. Prithviraj Patil defeated Gaurav Baliyan in 92kg and Sahil defeated Vicky in 97kg to make it to the Indian team. Sumit Malik defeated Akash Antil to book the World Championship ticket in the 125kg category. The World Championships will be held in Belgrade, Serbia from 16 September. United World Wrestling (UWW) on Thursday banned the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI). If this ban is not lifted, then Indian wrestlers will present the challenge under the banner of UWW as neutral players.

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