Indian wrestler Naveen won the gold medal in the men's 74kg freestyle wrestling at the 2022 Commonwealth Games with an thumping victory over Pakistan's Muhammad Sharif Tahir in the final at the Coventry Stadium and Arena, here on Saturday.
Making his CWG debut at Birmingham 2022, the 19-year-old Naveen, an under-23 world champion, won three of his bouts by technical superiority and fell just a point short of making it four in the final.
Naveen, who missed the Tokyo Olympics qualifiers after testing positive for COVID-19, started the gold medal match, with purpose. The Indian seemed to have the edge over Tahir in terms of speed and used it to his advantage to open the scoring with a two-point takedown.
