Ankit Gulia, a 19-year-old Greco-Roman wrestler from India, took home the bronze medal in the men's 72 kg division on Friday at the Ibrahim Moustafa 2023 wrestling ranking series in Alexandria, Egypt.
India won their first medal in the current competition with Ankit Gulia's bronze. Gulia, who took home the gold at the U15 Asian Championships in 2019, was defeated by Otar Abuladze of Georgia in the first round due to technical superiority (9-0).
However, Ankit Gulia entered the repechage round and defeated Nurzhigit Keneshbek Uulu of Kyrgyzstan on the basis of technical superiority after Otar Abuladze advanced to the final (9-0).
The bronze medal matchup pitted Ankit Gulia against Iran's Mohammadreza Abdolhamid Geraei, the current Olympic champion. Unfortunately, Geraei opted to withdraw after suffering an injury in one of his previous contests.
Sajan Bhanwala, a former Asian junior champion competing in the Greco-Roman 77kg division, lost his opening round 7-0 to Bulgaria's Aik Mnatsakanian and moved on to the repechage round. Yunus Emre Basar of Turkey, the third-ranked player in the world, defeated Sajan Bhanwala 10-0 in the repechage, however, and went on to win bronze.
Ashu (men's 67kg), who won a bronze medal at the Zagreb Open earlier this year, and Sunil Kumar (men's 87kg), two Indian wrestlers, advanced to the bronze medal matches earlier in the competition but failed to win.
Greco-Roman wrestlers Manjeet (55 kg), Vikram Kurade (60 kg), Nitin (63 kg), Karanjeet (67 kg), Rohit Dahiya (82 kg), Narinder Cheema (97 kg), and Naveen (130 kg) failed to get past the opening round.
The only Indian to win two matches on Friday in women's freestyle wrestling was Kiran, a bronze medalist at the Commonwealth Games competing at 76 kg. In the qualifying round, she defeated Estonia's Epp Mae 9-1, and in the quarterfinals, she defeated Ukraine's Anastasiia Osniach 3-2.
However in the semifinals, Kiran fell to world No. 7 Juan Wang of China 3-1, and in the bronze-medal match, Elmira Syzdykova of Kazakhstan blanked her 11-0.
Sito (women's 57 kg) and Sumitra (women's 62 kg) were unable to go through their opening round matches, but Radhika (women's 68 kg) managed to get into the second round.
The Ibrahim Moustafa 2023 wrestling ranking series will come to an end on February 26.
( With inputs from ANI )
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