Indian Wrestling Thread ...

[Sin Hombre]

Also in 50 Kgs, Seema is into repachages. She meets Nigerian Genesis first, a win will take her to quota match against a Russian and then a bronze match against a Kazakh.

Chinese, not Kazakh.

Looking at the performances, Seema should be able to beat the Nigerian and the Russian to win a quota. A medal against the Chinese wrestler will be too hard though.

[sameerph]

Vinesh beats the Ukranian comfortably 5-0.

Seema beats the Nigerian in a close match, both tied at 9-9 but Seema won because she won last points.

Vinesh against the American Hildebrandt and Seema against the Russian Poleshchuk for the quota. Both are going to be tough matches.

[depleter]

And Vinesh beats American 8-2 thereby wins the olympic quota and also moves into the bronze medal match. Seema lost to the russian easily 11-3.

[sameerph]

Excellent performance by Vinesh to beat the American top ranked wrestler so convincingly and get the quota for us. Hope she gets the bronze too in the match which will happen shortly.

In the 4 weight classes which started today, Pooja Dhanda has made the semi final in 59Kg. with a super comeback win over a Japanese wrestler in the third round. Pooja is a defending bronze medalists. But, this time she lost in the trials in 57 kg to Sarita Mor and therefore, shifted up to 59 kg. which is a non-olympic class.

Sarita herself lost in the first round and could not get into repachages. Our other 2 wrestler today, Kiran and Najot still have a chance for repachages as the wrestlers who beat them have reached SF. They have to hope that they get to the final.

[Dinakaran]

Any olympics slots available for this championship?

[sameerph]

Yes, of course. I posted above that Vinesh got us our first quota. Her semi final in coming up shortly.

Pooja Dhanda lost in the semi final of 59 kg. She will fight for bronze tomorrow. But, that is in a non-olympic class. So, no quota place there.

[depleter]

And Vinesh wins the bronze!!!!!! And that too by a fall.....
Amazing performance by vinesh despite that horrible draw...

[sameerph]

True, I saw her bronze medal bout. She was down 0-1 deep down in second half with neither wrestlers attacking much and then out of the blue, Vinesh came up with a big throw and pinned the Greek wrestler.

So, first world championship medal for Vinesh.

In the final of 53 kg, North Korean wrestler thrashed Japanese Mukaida who had beaten Vinesh easily. The North Korean had beaten the Japanese in Asian championships too. So, it does look like in this weight category, the North Korean and the Japanese are clear top 2 and Vinesh as of now favortie to pick up bronze.

She will have to think hard if she wants to stay here or go down again to 50 kg. In 50 kg, Azerbejan's Stadnik is pretty much unbeatable. But, other wrestler are whom Vinesh has beaten before.

So, gold looks to be far for Vinesh in either category. So, she might as well stay at 53 kg and work on her strength in next 1 year to try and get ahead of Japanese and North Korean.

[arjun2761]

Nice to see this win by Vinesh! She is definitely one of our top prospects for Tokyo to win a medal...

[Sin Hombre]

sameer, I don't know if we can call Vinesh a favourite for a bronze. I think she is in a group of 4 who can win one of the 2 bronzes behind the top 2. She was helped today by the fact that the Greek had a preexisting injury which opened up twice.

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I think she was in a better spot in the 50kg where she was clearly the second best wrestler over 2018.

[sameerph]

sameer, I don't know if we can call Vinesh a favourite for a bronze. I think she is in a group of 4 who can win one of the 2 bronzes behind the top 2. She was helped today by the fact that the Greek had a preexisting injury which opened up twice.

Yes, she may have been helped but that but I think without that also Vinesh may have got thru. She was just 1 point behind and the Greek wrestler had already got a caution for passivity in second half, I suppose. The way Vinesh beat 2 strong contenders, Sofia Matteson who was a Rio medalists (13-0) and top ranked Sarah Hildebrandt (12-1) was very good. The Asians appear to be the best in this weight category and got all 4 medals this time. Even if Vinesh is one of the top 4 in search of 2 bronzes, she has about 50% chance of a medal at Tokyo or even more as I consider her to be at top heap out of those 4 contenders.

I agree that in 50 kg, she may probably have a better chance of changing the color of the medal from bronze to silver but she may be really having difficulty keeping her weight in control. Also, she is relatively new entrant in 53 kgs. So, will take some time to build strength to match wrestlers at this weight. She seems to be already doing better than when she started. Hopefully, she will be in best shape by Tokyo 2020.

[sameerph]

Mens freestyle started with 2 weight categories and 2 remaining categories of womens freestyle are also happening today.

In mens freestyle, both Bajrang ( 65 kg) and Ravi Kumar ( 57 kg) have won 2 bouts each and are thru to the QF. Bajrang was expected but Ravi had a thumping 17-6 win over European champion from Armenia.

Both are 1 win away from olympic quota place. Bajrang meets a North Korean Jong Son while Ravi meets former world champion from Japan, Takahashi.

[sameerph]

And both win their QF and we get 2 olympic quotas.

Bajrang again with an expected 8-1 win over the North Korean. Admittedly, Bajrang has got an easier draw here. Other half has got most of the big wrestlers. Defending champion Japanese Otoguru in last WC final lost to the Russian here.

Ravi Kumar was a big surprise. After beating the European champion in the PQF he beats former world champion Takahashi 6-1 in the QF. What a performance by Ravi.

[Sin Hombre]

Both Bajrang and Ravi lose their semifinal bouts.

Bajrang actually ended in a tie 9-9 and lost on a tiebreak rule on which grappler won the biggest point. Very contentious bout and the Indian contingent felt hard done on the initial 4 points awarded to the Kazakh.

Ravi lost in a close bout 4-6.

And Vinesh beats American 8-2 thereby wins the olympic quota and also moves into the bronze medal match. Seema lost to the russian easily 11-3.

The Russian won the bronze.

We end the campaign on the women with one quota spot. Would have liked to see another but oh well.

[sameerph]

Just saw a replay of that Bajrang bout and Bajrang was clearly robbed there. One of rare losses for him and hope it stirs him up even more for trying to get a gold at Tokyo. He is still not a gold favorite as such because there are at least 5-6 wrestlers here who are capable of shining on his day but hope Bajrang is the one who does so in Tokyo.

Also Ravi did very well to run 2018 world champion so close in the SF. Hope he can win a bronze here tomorrow which will be a big boost for him.