Bhanwal misses bronze, Ravi enters repechage at U-23 World Championships

Three-time medallist Sajan Bhanwal (77kg) missed out on a bronze in Greco-Roman category but Ravi (97kg) reached the repechage round at the U-23 Wrestling World Championships here on Sunday. Turkey's Serkan Akkoyun proved too strong for Bhanwal and won 10-1 by superiority in the bronze medal contest.

Ravi was blanked 8-0 by Georgian grappler Giorgi Melia in the pre-quarter-finals, but, with the latter making it to the final, the Indian was presented with another chance to fight for a medal. Ravi now needs to win just one bout in the 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 bronze when he emerged victorious 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 while Rahul was beaten 0-8 by Russia's Magomed Yarbilov in the same round of 72kg. 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.