Divya settles for silver

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, july 19

Divya Kakran had a miserable outing as she was forced to settle for the silver medal at the Asian Junior Wrestling Championships underway at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi.

Kyrgyzstan’s Meerim Zhumanazaarova beat her in the 68kg category final on Thursday through technical superiority in a seemingly one-sided match.

Incidentally, this was only the second bout of the day for the Delhi girl. After getting a first-round bye, she was declared the winner in the quarterfinals after her Mongolian opponent Purevtsetseg Ganbaatar conceded the bout. Divya, the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games bronze-medallist, only had to beat China's Man Zhang in the semifinals to get into the gold medal round.

Divya was no match for the Kyrgyz grappler, who racked up 11 straight points to win on technical superiority. Incidentally, Divya had lost to the same opponent in the bronze medal playoff during the Asian Championships held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Bronze for Karuna, Reena

The Indian girls won two bronze medals on the first day of the female wrestling draw. After losing her semifinal in a close bout to China’s Jiajing Hou 6-8, Reena (55kg) defeated Uzbekistan’s Khodicha Najimova 8-2 to win the repechage bout for the bronze medal.

Karuna (76kg) defeated Mongolia’s Oyunbagana Batchuluu 10-0 by technical superiority to win the bronze medal. However, there was heartbreak for Sangeeta Phogat, who is the youngest of the Phogat sisters. She lost her bronze medal bout to China’s Juanjuan Shi 5-10. She had injured her knee in her quarterfinal loss to Uzbekistan’s Nabira Esenbaeva, who won by fall. The injury restricted Sangeeta’s leg movement and that played a big part in her loss. “My foot got stuck in the gap that was there in the mat and I twisted my knee. The injury played a role in the bronze medal match,” she told the media.

Shivani Pawar (50kg) too lost her bronze medal bout. Shivani lost 2-3 to Kazakh wrestler Marina Zakshevskaya.