Sajan misses bronze; Ravi enters repechage at U23 WWC

New Delhi, Nov 3 (IANS) Three-time World Junior Wrestling Championships medallist Sajan Bhanwal (77kg) has missed out on winning a bronze medal in Greco-Roman category at the UWW Under-23 World Championships 2019 in Budapest, Hungary.Turkey's Serkan Akkoyun proved too strong and won 10-1 by superiority in the bronze medal contest late on Saturday.The Indian contingent will, however, still have one final chance to win a bronze as Ravi reached the repechage in 97kg. Ravi's run had earlier ended in the pre-quarter-finals when he was blanked 8-0 by Georgian grappler, Giorgi Melia. But with the latter making it to the final, Ravi was presented with yet another chance to fight for a medal.Ravi now needs to win just one bout in repechage to enter the bronze medal play-off on the final day of the competition.Among other results of the day, Arjun Halakurki lost his 55kg repechage bout 2-10 to Norayr Hakhoyan of Armenia. In 87kg, Sunil Kumar raised hopes of a bronze when he emerged victorious by 5-3 in his first repechage bout against Aleksandar Georgije Stjepanetic of Sweden. However, his hopes were dashed in the second repechage bout when Croatia's Ivan Huklek beat him 6-3.None of the other Indians could manage to win a round. In 60kg qualifiers, Sachin Rana was shown the door in a 5-2 win by China's Liguo Cao. Neeraj too failed to make any impact as he went down 1-10 to Serbia's Branko Kovacevic in the qualifying bout in 82kg.Ravinder (67kg) started his campaign from the pre-quarter-finals but could not overcome the first hurdle as he was edged 2-1 by Haci Karakus of Turkey.
--IANS kk/rtp