Sushil Kumar qualifies for Commonwealth Games 2018 through selection trials filled with drama

New Delhi: Double Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar and five other male wrestlers on Friday qualified for next year’s Commonwealth Games scheduled to be held in Gold Coast, Australia. Apart from Sushil (74kg), other freestyle grapplers who have booked their places in the Commonwealth Games are Rahul Aware (57kg), Bajrang (65kg), Somveer (86kg), Mausam Khatri (97kg) and Sumit (125kg). [caption id=“attachment_4263017” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Sushil Kumar. Reuters[/caption] The six freestyle wrestlers also qualified for next year’s Senior Asian Wrestling Championship to be held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. In addition, 10 Greco-Roman wrestlers also qualified for the Asian Wrestling Championships. They are Rajender (55kg), Gyanender (60kg), Vikram Kurade (63kg), Manish (67kg), Kuldeep Malik (72kg), Gurpreet Singh (77kg), Harpreet Singh (82kg), Sunil (87kg), Hardeep (97kg) and Naveen (130kg). However, the selection trials held at the IG Stadium was marred by an unfortunate incident when a brawl broke out between the supporters of Sushil and his bitter rival Parveen Rana. Sushil won all his bouts on Friday but things took an ugly turn when Rana, after losing to the former in the semi-final clash, claimed that the decorated wrestler’s supporters beat him and his elder brother “for daring to take the ring” against him.