The Hindu : Sport / Wrestling : Indians dominate on day one

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Indians dominate on day one

Yajnabalkya Sarangi

JALANDHAR: Indian grapplers’ dominance on the opening day of the Commonwealth wrestling championship was quite predictable.

The host bagged six of the seven gold medals at stake in the Greco Roman competitions at the P.A.P. Indoor Stadium here on Friday.

Addinall wins gold

The only exception was in the 74 kg class in which Richard Addinall warded off a stiff challenge from Rajbir Chikara to claim the first gold medal for South Africa. The 26-year-old won the first round of the final bout 2-1 but lost the next 4-5. However, banking on his superior technique, the South African came back strongly to win the decider 6-3 and emerge as the winner.

“I lost my cell phone and that made it happen. I put in a determined effort for the gold,” Addinall told The Hindu. This was Addinall’s first gold in a championship outside Africa.

In 60 kg, Ravinder Singh achieved a unique feat by making it a hat-trick of gold medals in the Commonwealth championship. He had won the top honour in the 2005 and 2007 editions as well.

The Indian camp, however, was not very delighted with its performance on the inaugural day.

“We expected a clean sweep of the gold medals. Rajbir lost as his South African opponent was better prepared,” said Indian coach Mahavir Prasad.

Due to lack of enough competitors, Nordic system was adopted in four weight categories – 55 kg, 60 kg, 66 kg and 120 kg – to ascertain the winners. Under the system, every wrestler takes on each one of his opponents and the medals are decided on the basis of total points earned by each athlete.

The results (Indians unless specified): 55 kg: Gold: Rajender Kumar; silver: Hari Krishan; bronze: Barashat Ali (Pak) and van wyk Carlo (SA). 60 kg: Gold: Ravinder Singh; silver: Anil Kumar; bronze: Marius Loots (SA) and Farzao Tarash (Aus).

66 kg: Gold: Gurbinder Singh; silver: Sunil Kumar; bronze: Mehrdad Tarash (Aus) and Muhammad Salman (Pak). 74 kg: Gold: Richard Addinall (SA); silver: Rajbir Chikara; bronze: Clinton Davies (NZ) and Sanjay. 84 kg: Gold: Manoj Kumar; silver: Rajesh Kumar; bronze: Richard Ferreira (SA) and Dean van Zyl (SA). 96 kg: Gold: Ashok Kumar; silver: Hugues Bella Lufu (SA); bronze: Anil Kumar and Mohammad Umar (Pak). 120 kg: Gold: Dharmender Dalal; silver: Andries Schutte (SA); bronze: Rishi Pal (Ind) and Andrew Davidson (SA).