HARPAL SINGH BEDI
Three-time World Junior Championships medallist Sajan Bhanwal (77kg) began his campaign in style thrashing Sweden’s .Per Albin Olofsson 6-2 to storm into the semi-finals of Greco-Roman event of the U-23 World Wrestling Championships in Budapest, Hungary on Friday
Bhanwal opened with thunderous 6-0 win over Jesse Alexander Porter 6-0 in the qualifiers to move into the pre-quarter-finals, where he notched up a 3-1 win over Azerbaijan’s Tunjay Vazirzade. The Indian then overwhelmed Olofsson to rush into the semi-finals
However non of the other Indian in the fray in Greco-Roman this afternoon could make much impact. Arjun Halakurki’s good run in 55kg came to an end in the quarter-finals when he narrowly went down 12-14 to Emin Narimanovitch Sefershaev of Russia.
Earlier he had beaten Giovanni Freni of Italy 13-9 in the qualifiers and Sebastian Kolompar of Serbia 9-0 in the pre-quarter-finals.
Sunil Kumar advanced from the 87kg qualifiers to the pre-quarter-finals by sheer dint of his 7-2 victory over Algeria’s Sid Azara. In the next round, he was shown the door by Ukraine’s Semen Novikov in a 0-8 loss.
In 63kg, Rajeet had it tough against top seed Slavik Galstyan and went down 0-8 in his opening bout. In 130kg, Deepak Poonia could not make much of an impact and succumbed to a 1-6 defeat at the hands of USA’s David Tate Orndorff in the qualification round.