Gurpreet Singh, Sunil Kumar clinch gold medals at senior national wrestling championships

Jalandhar: Living up to their favourites tag, Asian Championship silver medallists Gurpreet Singh and Sunil Kumar clinched gold medals as the Tata Motors senior national wrestling championships concluded here on Sunday with competition in Greco Roman style. Punjab’s Gurpreet overcame two-time junior world championships medallist Sajan Bhanwal, representing Services, 3-1 in the 77kg category, to lift his fourth national title. [caption id=“attachment_7724641” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Gurpreet defeated Sajan Bhanwal to win the Gold at the Tata Motors Senior Natioanls in 77 kg category.[/caption] Sunil also managed an easy win over Punjab’s Prabhal. The Railway’s grappler used all his experience to crush the Punjab wrestler 5-1 in the 87kg final. In the 55kg category, Arjun, representing Services, won against Ajay by technical superiority. Enjoying the home support, Punjab’s Harpreet Singh, the Asian Games silver medallist, defeated Rajbir Chhikara of Railways 4-1 in the 82 kg category final. Hardeep Singh, who was the first Greco-Roman wrestler to qualify for the Olympics, received a walkover against Ravi Rathi of Railways in 97kg final. Railways finished on the top with 210 points ahead of Services (170 points) and Jharkhand (109 points). Meanwhile, as announced earlier, the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) included gold medallists at the Nationals in the country’s squad for the South Asian Games, starting from December in Nepal. The seven-member men’s and women’s contingent will be led by Olympic medallist, Sakshi Malik, and U-23 World Championship silver medallist, Ravinder. “The players have been chosen after an extremely tough competition from the National platform and I am confident that the players will maintain the supremacy and defend their 2016 titles in both the men and women’s category,” said WFI President Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.