The Hindu : Sport / Wrestling : Sushil wins Olympic quota

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Saturday, Sep 22, 2007
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Sushil wins Olympic quota

BAKU: Freestyle grappler Sushil Kumar booked himself yet another trip to the Olympics as he finished seventh in the 66-kg weight category at the World wrestling championship here.

After three bad days, Sushil won the first Olympic quota for India in the wrestling competition.

Sushil made it to the quarterfinals, winning his first three rounds with comprehensive margins before losing to Ukraine’s Andriy Stadnik 4-15.

In the first round, Sushil blanked Elar Hani of Estonia 4-0, then defeated Ricardo Robertty of Venezuela 3-0 before getting past Kyrgyzstan’s Bator Bazarov 9-1.

Turkey’s Ramazan Shahin won the gold medal beating Cuba’s Geandry Garzon.

India’s super-heavyweight wrestler Palwinder Singh Cheema crashed out in the 120-kg freestyle class. After getting a first round bye, Cheema was sent packing by Ruslan Basiev of Armenia who won 4-0.

In the 96-kg category, Rohit Patel beat Vali Sheripov of Tajikistan 9-3, but lost in the second round to Stefan Kehrer of Germany 0-7.

Among the other freestyle wrestlers, Ramesh Kumar (74-kg) and Ramvir (84-kg) also failed to make much progress.

Ramesh defeated Alexandr Burca of Moldova 5-1 in the first round but lost to Azerbaijan’s Chansulvara Chansulvarayev 7-4 in the next. Russia’s Mahach Murtazaliev claimed the gold beating Ukraine’s Ibragim Aldatov.

Ramvir got a first round bye and then lost to Miroslav Guechev of Bulgaria 0-2.

The Russians continued to hold sway as Georgy Ketoev secured the 84-kg gold medal defeating Jousop Abdusalomov of Tajikistan.

Anil Kumar (55-kg), who lost in the second round to Besik Kudukhov, had qualified for the repechage round and did reasonably well.

In the first round, he beat Mikhail Japaridze of Canada 6-2 before losing to Freddy Serrano of Colombia 3-6 to finish 10th, the best position for India after Sushil’s seventh.

Yogeshwar Dutt (60-kg) was 16th, Ramesh Kumar 19th and Ramvir 33rd.

The top-eight ranked wrestlers at the World championship qualify for the Beijing Olympics.

Nirmala Devi (48-kg) has no answer to Russia’s Lilia Kaskarakova and lost 0-7.

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