NEW DELHI: Vishal Kaliraman frittered away a stupendous start in his gold medal bout while Sachin Giri and Naveen were outwitted by their opponents, settling for silver medals at the Junior Asian Wrestling Championships, here on Saturday.
On the opening day of the Freestyle bouts, four of the five Indians reached the medal round with Karan winning the bronze in the 65kg category.
Hussain Nasir, the fifth Indian in action on Saturday, could not reach the medal round. After Naveen (57kg) and Vishal (70kg) lost their gold medal bouts, the hosts hoped Sachin would end the wait for a gold but he lost the final in just one minute and 12 seconds.
Sajjad Saberali Gholami of Iran outclassed him with a leg-lace move and rolled him four times in a row to end the bout in a jiffy, much to the disappointment of partisan Indian fans. Before that, Naveen could not breach the solid defence of Uzbekistan’s Gulomjon Abdullaev, who used his goof height to consistently push the Indian out of the mat.
The Uzbek opened up a huge 7-0 lead by the end of first period. Naveen, who trains at Chhatrasal stadium, got on board when he managed to pushed Gulomjon once.
“I got puzzled when I lost so many points in the first period. It just blocked my mind. I could not think anything for a comeback,” said the 20-year-old, who had beaten Asian Games-bound Sandeep Tomar during the Nationals.
Naveen, who hails from Sisai village in Hisar, now wants to focus on junior world championship.
“I want to win a a gold at Worlds. I will work hard,” he said. Vishal fought an exciting battle against Iran’s Amirhossein Morteza Gholiu Kavousi and straight away opened up a 4-0 lead with a front salto but gradually lost the grip over the contest.
The Iranian with his good height and strong legs kept pushing Vishal to not only erase the deficit but take a 7-5 lead.
Vishal levelled the bout with a take down move but was thrown out in the fag end by the Iranian.
He had beaten China’s Jun Zhao by technical superiority in the quarterfinal before winning a close semifinal against Japan’s Kojiro Shiga 6-4. Naveen had beaten Mongolia’s Tumentsogt Bold (12-4), Iran’s Reza Mohsen Alijanzadehjouybari (6-5) and Turkmeinstan’s Rozgeldi Seyidov (9-2) en route the gold medal match.
Sachin beat Korea’s Dongmin Shin 6-1 in the semifinals and Uzbekistan;s Mukhammadrasul Rakhimov 10-5 in his tournament-opener. After losing his quarterfinal 1-10 to Iran’s Sajad Gholamhossein, Hussain Nasir had got a chance to reach the medal round in the 97kg but he lost his repechage bout 6-11 to Japan’s Keivan Yoshida.
Iran on the other hand kicked off freestyle action at the Asian Junior Championships by winning three gold medals and bringing their tournament total to nine championship performances. Their three gold medal day keeps them on par to match their Greco-Roman countryman’s six gold medal performance from earlier this week. Iran was matched-up head-to-head with the host nation, India. (PTI)
