Haryana dominate U-23 National Wrestling C'ships

Haryana wrestlers yet again dominated the Tata Motors U-23 National Wrestling Championships as their men won four out of 10 gold medals, mostly in heavier weight categories of the Freestyle events, here on Sunday.

They also managed to win a silver and four bronze medals to get to the top of the medal tally and clinch the overall championships title.

Haryana logged 195 points with Delhi closely behind them at 165 points and Maharashtra coming at the third spot with 139 points.

All the gold medal winners will represent India in the Bucharest Under-23 World Championships to be held in the Romanian capital city from November 12 to 18 this year.

Hosts Rajasthan bagged two bronze medals through Lado Jat (70 kg) and Rahul Rathi (79 kg) to register their presence in the meet which was being organized at the fort city for the first time.

The other gold-winning efforts came from Delhi as they bagged two medals and one each went to Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Maharashtra wrestlers.

As for the results in various categories, Ravi Kumar of Delhi beat Sagar of Maharashtra 10-4 in 57 kg and it was followed up by Arun of Haryana, who notched up an identical score against Vinas Kumar of UP in 61 kg.

In 65 kg, Surjeet of Delhi overcame Maharashtra's Akshay for the gold medal and Naveen of Jharkhand beat Haryana's Jasbir 9-3 in 70 kg class in what was a tough bout with points accumulated by the former in a flurry in the second and third rounds.

In heavier weight categories, Haryana's Praveen beat Kumar Lahu of Maharashtra 15-3 in 75kg, Dinesh downed Sandeep Mann of Punjab 4-3 in 79kg in one of the best bout of the day and Sunil Kumar overcame Kiran of Karnataka 5-3 in the 92 Kg.

In between, Upas Sharma from UP surpassed Nishant Gujar of Uttarakhand 4-3 in 86 kg in a close bout, while Punjab's Karandeep Singh beat Nasir Hussain of Delhi 12-3 in 97 kg to claim the gold.

In 125 kg category, the lone medal for Maharashtra came when the state's wrestler Abhijit beat Services opponent Sanjay 7-2.