Yogeshwar secures Olympic berth

ASTANA: wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt on Saturday secured an Olympic quota place for India with a goldmedal finish in the men’s 65kg freestyle category on an otherwise disappointing day for the country’s grapplers in the Asian Olympic Qualification tournament. Yogeshwar became the second Indian wrestler after Narsingh Yadav to book a berth for the Rio Games, to be held later this year. Even before he clinched the yellow metal, the 33- year-old had qualified for Olympics by virtue of reaching the final on the second day of the competition. The top two finishers in each weight category here are assured of a Rio berth. The London Olympics bronze-medallist finished on top of the podium after his rival from China Katai Yeerlanbieke forfeited the gold-medal bout. En route the final, Yogeshwar put up a dominating show, winning all his three bouts rather comfortably. Having beaten Kim Jusong of North Korea in qualification round 8-1, he got the better of Xuan Dinh Nguyen of Vietnam by fall verdict 12-2 in quarters and then followed it up by beating Lee Seung-Chul of Korea 7-2 in his semifinal bout. The ongoing tournament is the second qualifying event for the Rio Games. The first was last year’s World Championship in Las Vegas, where only Narsingh Yadav bagged a quota place for the country in men’s 74kg freestyle. Yogeshwar, who had pulled out of the 2015 World Championship due to an injury, has qualified for the Rio Games in his first attempt here. Yogeshwar had won bronze at the last Olympics in men’s 60kg freestyle but since then moved up to 65kg after the international governing body FILA re-jigged the weight classes at the end of 2013. However, Yogeshwar hardly faced any problem competing in the higher bracket as he has so far managed to win nothing less than a gold at whichever tournament he has participated in since climbing up the weight division. In the other men’s freestyle contest on Saturday, Satywart Kadian missed out on a third-place finish as he went down to Japan’s Takeshi Yamaguchi 2-3 in his bronze-medal bout in men’s 97kg division. (PTI)