World Wrestling Championships: Lalit stays in medal race as three Indians bow out

India endured a tough opening day at the World Wrestling Championship, with only Lalit managing to stay in the medal race in the 55kg category while three other Greco-Roman wrestlers were eliminated on Saturday. Lalit looked down and out against Turkiye’s Omer Halis Recep in the round of 16, trailing 0-7 and standing just one point away from defeat. However, the Indian produced a stunning turnaround, reeling off nine consecutive points to register a 9-7 victory and keep his campaign alive. His next opponent was Iran’s Payam Farzad Ahmadi, the 2025 U20 world champion and reigning senior world silver medallist. Ahmadi secured a win by technical superiority. Ahmadi later reached the final, opening up the repechage route for Lalit, who now needs to win two bouts on Sunday to win a bronze medal. Harsh (60kg), Lovepreet Singh (77kg) and Prince (82kg) lost their opening bouts to bow out. Lovepreet lost to Uzbekistan’s Doniyorkhon Nakibov by technical superiority (0-8) in the qualification round, while Prince suffered a 1-3 defeat against Serbia’s Viktor Nemes. Harsh went down by technical superiority (0-9) to Kyrgyzstan’s Kurmanbek Zhaparov in his qualification bout. Sandeep Tulsi Yadav is the only Indian Greco-Roman wrestler to have won a medal at the World Championships, a bronze at the 2013 edition in Budapest, Hungary. Competition will continue in Greco-Roman style on Sunday featuring bouts in 72kg, 97kg and 130kg weight divisions.

Opening day results for Indian Greco-Roman wrestlers

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Sources

• NDTV Sports

• Sportstar

• Photo: Løken, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)