CHENNAI : Indian wrestler Ravinder stunned defending champion Beka Lomtadze of Georgia in 61kg weight category before going down in the quarterfinal against American Daton Duain Fix on day one of the World Championships in Oslo, Norway on Saturday. The 2019 Pan American champion Fix later reached the final to present Ravinder a chance to fight for bronze. Ravinder will now have to beat the winner of the bout between Bulgaria’s Georgi Valentinov Vangelov and Arman Norik Eloyan of France. If he manages to win the repechage round, he will be up against Armenia’s Arsen Harutyunyan.
Meanwhile, Yash (74kg), Sandeep Singh Mann (86kg) and Anirudh Kumar (125kg) lost their respective qualification bouts to make an early exit from the tournament. Ravinder, the silver medallist from the junior world championships held in August, defeated Sunggwon Kim of Korea (13-2) by technical superiority in the qualification round before registering a surprise 6-2 victory over the defending champion from Georgia.
However, the American wrestler proved too good for Ravinder, who lost his quarterfinal by technical superiority. A flurry of gut-wrench moves followed from Fix, who finished the bout inside two minutes. Apart from Ravinder, three Indian wrestlers in action failed to get past the qualification rounds.
The 74kg contender Yash was outplayed 0-7 by Russia’s Timur Bizhoev. In the 86kg, national champion Sandeep fought hard before losing 4-5 to Korea’s Kim Gwanuk. In the 125kg, Anirudh bowed out with a 3-9 defeat against Egypt’s Youssif Mohamed Badea Hemida.