World Wrestling Championship: Three-time Commonwealth Games champion Vinesh Phogat suffered a major defeat on Tuesday at the ongoing World Wrestling Championships in Belgrade, Serbia. India’s star female wrestler Vinesh crashed out of the qualification round after losing to Mongolia’s Khullan Batkhuyag. The Indian wrestler failed to challenge the Mongolian wrestler here and ended up in a 0-7 defeat. With this, India’s medal hopes in the World Championships have also suffered a major setback.
10th seed Vinesh, who won the yeo gold medal for her brilliant performance in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, looked tired here. Vinesh lost her balance in the last seconds of the women’s freestyle 53kg category bout against the silver medalist of the Asian Championships, which was taken advantage of by her opponents. Batkuyag took a 3-0 lead after the first round and slammed the former World Championships bronze medalist back to the mat in the last second to score four points and seal a major victory.
It is worth mentioning that Indian junior wrestler Last, who lost to Vinesh in the selection trial, had defeated the Mongolian wrestler at the Under-23 Asian Championships early last month. In such a situation, this easy defeat of Vinesh definitely raises questions on his mediocre performance. Also, Vinesh Phogat was considered a strong contender for the medal in the absence of former silver medalist Anshu Malik. Because they had a favorable draw after defending champion Akari Fujinami of Japan withdrew due to injury. However, now she was eliminated in the qualification round.
India’s disappointment in these matches too
India suffered another disappointment when Neelam Sirohi lost 0-10 on technical superiority in the 50kg category to two-time World Championships silver medalist Emilia Alina Vuc of Romania. On the other hand, French wrestler Koumba Larroc, who was playing with multiple knee bandages in the other match, defeated Shefali on the basis of technical superiority in the women’s 65kg category.