Indian wrestlers Veer Dev Gulia and Ravinder made it to the bronze medal round on day one of the Junior World Wrestling Championships in Tampere, Finland on Tuesday.
Ravinder dominated in this quarter-final, pre-quarterfinal and qualification bouts to make it to the semis of the men’s 60kg freestyle category, before losing to Steven McKee of USA 14-16 in the last four stage.
Ravinder had beaten Seokki Yoon of Korea 12-2, Ali Rahimzade of Azerbaijan 5-4 and Tsogbadrakh Tseveensuren of Mongolia 2-2.
In his bronze-medal bout, Ravinder will take on Hiromu Sakaki of Japan.
Gulia made the bronze medal play-offs of men’s 74kg freestyle after his quarter-final round opponent Isa Shapiev of Uzbekistan reached the gold medal round.
Gulia began by beating Johann Christoph Steinforth of Germany 6-2 in the in pre-quarters, but lost in the quarterfinals 0-11 to the Uzbek wrestler.
But with Shapiev entering the gold medal round, Gulia got another chance and took full advantage of it by defeating Ty Stuart Bridgwater of Canada 5-0 in his repechage bout. Gulia will take on Yamasaki Yajuro of Japan in his bronze medal bout.
Other Indians in the fray– Suraj Aswala (50kg) and Monu (96kg) – bowed out of the tournament early.
