CHENNAI: For the first time since the 2019 World Championships, Sakshi Malik had grabbed a place in the 62kg weight category in the national squad last month. It had taken the 29-year-old Sakshi five bouts to finally beat her nemesis — 20-year-old Sonam Malik — in selection trials to earn that place. To achieve the same, the Rio Olympics bronze medallist not only sharpened her skills on the mat but off it too by hiring a psychologist a few months back.
The efforts put in by the Railway wrestler paid huge dividends as she clinched a gold medal at an ongoing Ranking Series (Bolat Turlykhanov Cup) in Almaty, Kazakhstan on Friday. Incidentally, this was her first gold in more than four years. The last time she finished first in an international event was back in December 2017 when she won gold in the Commonwealth Championship.
The second day of the event turned out to be a fruitful outing for the Indian contingent as women wrestlers won three gold and a bronze medal. Mansi (57kg), who replaced injured Anshu Malik in the squad, and Divya Kakran (68kg) were other gold winners while Pooja (76kg) bagged bronze. On Day 1, India had won one bronze with Greco-Roman wrestler Neeraj finishing third in 63kg.
"The sessions with the psychologist proved to be immensely helpful as I reclaimed my place in the 62kg weight category," Sakshi had told this daily after she made the national squad. On Friday, Sakshi put up a dominating show, overpowering local wrestler Irina Kuznetsova 10-0 by technical superiority in round one and followed it up with a 9-3 win over Uzbek wrestler Rushana Abdirasulova. Her Mongolian opponent, Tserenchimed Sukhee, forfeited the semifinal bout giving Sakshi an easy passage to the final where she pinned Kuznetsova to win 7-4.
"It was a brilliant show by our wrestlers, especially Sakshi. She played aggressively and was dominating in every bout. It's a good sign for her as making a comeback in the Commonwealth Games (CWG) selection trials and then clinching a gold medal after almost five years is not an easy task," women's team head coach Jitender Yadav told this daily from Almaty.
Like Sakshi, Divya also made a comeback to the national fold in her weight category (68kg) after a long time. She also made it count by winning her first two bouts by falls before losing the final one. Despite the loss, she finished on top of the podium in her weight category where the bouts were held in a round-robin format.
In 57kg, Sumiya Erdenechimeg from Mongolia forfeited the opening bout against Mansi. The Indian then beat Emma Tissina of Kazakhstan 6-0 to move into the semifinal where she registered a comprehensive 10-0 win by fall over Lauran Almaganbetova of Kazakhstan. She defeated Kazakh wrestler Emma Tissina 3-0 in the final.
Pooja won two bouts in 78kg before losing the semifinal to Aiperi Medet Kyzy of Kazakhstan 10-0. Her opponent in the bronze medal play-off — Zagardulam Naigalsuren from Mongolia — however, forfeited the bout, handing Pooja a bronze medal.