Junior World Wrestling Championships: Indu Chaudhary and Pradeep wins bronze

After an indifferent start to their campaign in the ongoing Junior World Championship being held in Pattaya, Thailand, the Indian grapplers had finally something to cheer about with Indu Chaudhary and Pradeep clinching the bronze in the women’s 44kg and men’s 50kg freestyle wt. category respectively.

Indu beat Evin Demirhan of Turkey 3-1 in a closely contested repechage round bout to open India’s account in the tournament. Earlier, Indu beat Russia’s Aziyata Khomushku in a lop-sided pre-quarterfinal bout before humbling the Moldovan Emilia Budeanu in the quarterfinals. She, however, lost 0-5 to Japan’s Rie Matsumoto in the semifinals, only to remain in contention for the bronze.

On the other hand Pradeep, who lost to Ruslan Surkhayev of Azerbeijan in 1/8 Final round, also won the Bronze medal through Repechege Round as the Wrestler from Azerbeijan reached to finals. In the first round of Repechage Pradeep defeated Marc Luithle of Germany by 3-0 and then defeated Turkish wrestler Muammer Sancek 5-3 in the bronze medal play-off.

It was, though, a heartbreak for Pooja Dhanda in the 59kg group after she lost her bronze medal bout 0-3 to China’s Feng Jiamin.

Pooja started off her campaign on a positive note beating Kazakhstan’s Ayaulym Kassymova 3-1 in the pre-quarterfinal and making a light work of Poland’s Agnieszka Sylwia Krol in the next round to reach the semis.

In another bout Seema (61kg) was no match to Krystsina Fedarashka of Belarus as she lost 0-5 in the pre-quarters. Earlier Indian male grapplers drew a blank in the Greco Roman category.

With 1 Bronze each in Men’s and Women’s freestyle category Indian team is currently at 9th position out of 57 nations in men’s freestyle category and on 11th position in Women’s freestyle category.