Press Trust of India
Las Vegas, Sept 13: Narsingh Pancham Yadav secured an Olympic quota place Saturday for India after bagging a bronze medal in the men’s 74kg freestyle category, giving the country a reason to cheer at the World Wrestling Championships here.
This is the first time that an Indian wrestler has earned an Olympic berth with a medal at the World Championships. Double Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar’s absence from the mat for over an year now has made Narsingh a regular in the 74kg division.
It however, will now be interesting to see who between the veteran Sushil or 26-year-old Narsingh ultimately board the flight to Rio next year to represent India in this category. As per rules, an Olympic berth is for the country concerned and not the wrestler who might have clinched it.
Other than Narsingh, India had a dismal show overall in the championships, which concluded Saturday, as no one else could make it to the podium. Amit Kumar (57kg), Arun Kumar (70kg) and Sumit (125kg) – could not progress beyond the quarterfinal round.
Narsingh came up with some dominating performances, defeating Hanoc Rachamin of Israel 14-2 before getting the better of Soner Demirtas of Turkey 4-3 and Cuba’s Livan Lopez Azcuy 16-5 to advance to the semifinal.
But in his semifinal bout, Narsingh went down to Unurbat Purevjav of Mongolia. However, in his bronze medal play-off, he got his act together to outplay Zelimkhan Khadjiev of France 12-8 to make it to the podium.
