The Haryana men’s freestyle team won eight medals, including a gold, dominating the opening day of U-23 National Wrestling Championship in Shirdi on Friday. The state also won four silver and three bronze medals to get to the top of the medal tally.
Haryana logged 158 points with Services following them at 150 points and Chandigarh coming at the third spot with 130 points. The gold medallists here will represent India in the Under-23 World Championships in Budapest from October 28-November 3.
Hosts Maharashtra bagged two medals through Sikandar (92 kg) and Suraj (61 kg) to register their presence in the meet. Sikandar grabbed the gold medal after defeating Haryana’s Sunil 10-6 while Suraj lost to Ravinder 3-5 in a close bout and had to contend with silver medal.
The other gold-winning efforts came from Services as they bagged four medals with Uttar Pradesh winning two and one each went to Chandigarh, Haryana and Delhi wrestlers.
As for the results in other categories, 2017 Junior World Championships bronze medallist Veer Dev Gulia (79kg) defeated UP’s Sachin 6-3 and it was followed by Naveen (70 kg) who defeated Haryana’s Vishal 6-3 and won the gold two times in a row.
In the 74 kg final, Gaurav (UP) defeated Haryana’s Pritam 5-0 to claim the gold. In 65 kg, Chandigarh’s Sharvan defeated Delhi’s Sunny 4-0 for the gold medal and Naveen of Haryana beat Chandigarh’s Sumit by technical superiority in 57 kg class.
In heavier weight categories, Akash Antil of Delhi downed Haryana’s Amit 12-5 in 97 kg category. In the 86 kg and 125 kg final, Sanjeet (Services) and Aryan (UP) won the bout as they got a walkover.