Wrestling Nationals | Haryana grapplers hog limelight on day one

Haryana dominates Senior National wrestling championship with four gold medals on opening day in Bangalore.

As expected, Haryana grabbed a lion’s share of the gold medals on the opening day of the Senior National wrestling championship at the Koramangala Indoor Stadium here on Friday, with its grapplers winning four of the 10 men’s freestyle events.

Amidst a cacophony of sounds, dance programmes, folk music and endless felicitations, the 25-year-old Anuj Kumar, a former under-23 National champion and a senior Asian and World Championships participant in 2023, opened the golden floodgates for Haryana with an easy win over Services’ Sharwan 10-2 in 70kg. Siddharth (65kg), Amit (79kg) and Sachin (92kg) followed.

Local lad Rohan Narayan got the home fans excited with a run to the 74kg final and even took a 4-0 lead over Services’ Jaideep. But the latter turned it around in emphatic fashion, winning 14-4.

The results (freestyle):

57kg: Gold: Rahul (Del) bt Shubham (Ser) 6-4; Bronze: Sumit (Har) bt Akshay (Mah) 8-6; Vikash (Raj) bt Bapi Das (Odi) 5-0.

61kg: Gold: Pankaj (Ser) bt Lalit Kaushal (MP) 6-0; Bronze: Natter Singh (J&K) bt Ajit Bhuyan (Odi) 10-0; Neeraj (Del) bt Deepak (Har) 9-6.

65kg: Gold: Siddharth (Har) bt Mohit Kumar (Ser) 4-4; Bronze: Sumit Vishnoi (Raj) bt Shubham (Mah) 9-7; Ayush Kumar (UP) bt Mahesh P. Gouda (Kar) 16-6.