Olympic bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt (65kg) and Commonwealth Games medallist Amit Kumar (57kg) on Tuesday sealed their place in the Senior World Wrestling Championships (SWWC) to be held in las Vegas, USA from September 7-14. Joining them would be another Commonwealth Games medallist Narsingh Yadav in the 74kg category.
Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) conducted selection trials at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium on Tuesday and selected 16-member squad — 8 Freestyle and 8 Greco-Roman — for the SWWC that is the first qualification competition for the Rio Olympics next year.
Yogeshwar, in his usual 65kg category, received tough competition from compatriot Amit Dhankhar, who had gone to court last year alleging favouritism by WFI in picking the team without conducting trials. But the 32-year-old Yogeshwar made his experience count and held on to win with a final score of 6-3.
“There was a little bit of a pressure to perform even though I was confident of my chances. If things hadn’t gone as planned, people may have raised fingers at the team chosen (for 2014 CWG). But I’m glad that I have proven today that I was the most deserving,” he said after his bout at the India Gandhi Stadium on Tuesday.
Earlier, Delhi’s Amit Kumar was involved in an exciting bout with Sandeep Tomar that was decided in the final three seconds. Amit was down 0-2 with a minute to go and having played the patience game, he took one point back and then added another two in the remaining three seconds to dash Tomar’s hopes.
Replicating Amit, Narsingh took down Parveen Rana 6-5 with crucial point in the final 10 seconds much to the jubilation of a packed stadium.
Squads Freestyle: Amit Kumar (57kg), Sonu (61kg), Yogeshwar Dutt (65kg), Arun (70kg), Narsingh Yadav (74kg), Naresh Kumar (86kg), Mausam Khatri (97kg), Sumit (125kg). Greco-Roman: Ravinder Singh (59kg), Deepak (66kg), M Rafique (71kg), Gurpreet Singh (75kg), Harpreet Singh (80kg), Manoj Kumar (85kg), Hardeep (98kg), Naveen (130kg).