India clinches a medal at Junior World Wrestling Championship

It was a proud moment for the country when India’s Manju Kumari trounced Ilona Prokopevniuk of Ukraine to win the bronze medal with a 2-0 victory in the Junior World Wrestling Championship in Tampere, Finland on Thursday. However, other team members and contenders like Divya Tomar (44kg), Nandini Salokhe (51kg) and Pooja Devi (67kg) couldn’t make it to the medal round. Manju was competing in 59kg. She had an excellent start with a dominating 5-1 victory over Bulgaria’s Aleksandrina Nikolaeva Kashinova in the 1/8 stage. However, she was outclassed 0-10 by Japan’s Yuzuru Kumano in her quarterfinal bout. With the Japanese girl advancing to the final, Manju got another life in the form of repechage. She grabbed that opportunity and was determined to win. In the repechage bout, Manju gave a tough fight to Tianna Grace Kennett of Canada. She overpowered her with a 4-0 victory to storm into the bronze-medal play-offs. Tomar had a chance in the bronze- medal round of 44kg after she got a repechage, but she missed the opportunity when she lost to Fatme Ibraimova Mandeva of Bulgaria narrowly. On Wednesday night, Deepak Punia lost his chance of a medal when he went down to Gadzhimurad Magomedsaidov of Azerbaijan in the bronze-medal match of men’s 84kg freestyle.