Bajrang Punia, Ravi Dahiya clinch Gold at Rome Ranking series 2020
By Anurag Mallick Published on 19 Jan 2020 12:58 PM GMT
Hyderabad: India's top-seed wrestler Bajrang Punia and fellow wrestler Ravi Dahiya won gold medals in their respective categories of 61 and 65 kg at the Rome Ranking series in Rome on Saturday.
The 25-year-old Bajrang Punia, who has already won three medals at the World wrestling Championships is now considered as India's top atheletes to win an Olympic Medal at the Tokyo Olympics, later this year.
Bajrang, who was not looking in his best form, made a wonderful comeback to win the Gold by 4-3 against USA's Jordan Michael Oliver in the final of the 65kg freestyle category.
Whereas on the other side, the 23-year-old Dahiya crushed Kazakhstan's Nurbolat Abdualiyev by 12-2 in the final of the 61kg category. Rahul, who competes in the 57-kg category usually, wrestled in the 61 kg category and still managed to dominate his opponents by winning the Gold.
The Sonetpet wrestler had a wonderful run throughout the tournament as he won matches against Moldova's Alexaandru Chirtoaca and Kazakhstan's Nurislam Sanayev.
On the other hand, Vinesh Phogat won a Gold whereas Anshu Malik won a silver in the women's competition. However, things didn't go the right way for Jitender and Deepak Punia as Jitender lost the quarter-final against Turkey's Sooner Demirtas by 4-0 in the 74-kg category.
Deepak Punia lost his first round bout against Puerto Rico's Ethan Adrian by 1-11.
Fellow wrestlers Satyawart Kadiyan and Sumit Malik couldn't even make it to the medal rounds in their respective categories of 97 and 125 kgs.
