New Delhi: The Indian team picked for U17 World Championship did not have many surprises with as many as six medal winners from the recent Asian Championships acing the selection trials to make the national team here on Monday.
The Wresting Federation of India (WFI) had restricted the trials to medal winners at the recent U17 National Championship, thus only the best wrestlers in each of the 10 categories competed, limiting the number of bouts.
Haryana’s Rachna Parmar (43kg), Delhi’s Moni (57kg), Rajasthan’s Ashvini Vaishno (65kg), and Haryana’s Manisha (69kg), who won gold medals at the Asian Championships in Vietnam, emerged winners in their respective categories.
Rachna got the better of Cheshta 3-0 in the final.
After losing a point on passivity, Cheshta tried the ‘dhobi pachad’ at least twice but lost point on counter attack as Rachna managed to take her down on one of the moves to come out a clean winner.
Cheshta had also won a medal at Asian Championship — a silver in 40kg– but she chose to compete in 43kg on Monday.
The 65kg and 69kg weight class featured only two wrestlers each.
Ashvini beating Haryana’s Taniya 2-0 in 65kg and Manisha pinning Delhi Bharti after taking a comfortable 4-0 lead.
Anshika Yadav from UP missed out on competing in the 69kg as the officials did not allow her weigh-in because her passport is expiring in December this year and a six-month validity is a must for visa application.
“Even if she had won, she would not have travelled, so what’s the point in her competing? It’s unfortunate that she could not compete,” said an official.
“Today is the last day to send entries through UWW’s software and we couldn’t have sent her name even if she got her passport renewed through Tatkal.”
Uttar Pradesh’s Preeti (40kg), Kasish (46kg), Komal (49kg), Yashita (61kg) and Kajal (73kg) were the other trials winners.
Komal defeated Asia Championship bronze winner Anjali after erasing a 0-2 deficit.
Anjali went up 2-0 with a take down and maintained the lead till the break. In the second period, Komal was put on clock and she responded with a quick two-point move. She effected another take down towards to end to earn her spot in the Indian team.
Incidentally, Kajal was the lone wrestler in 73kg weight class.
