Bajrang Punia (65kg) and Ravi Kumar Dahiya (57kg) secured Tokyo Olympic quotas for India but went down fighting in semi-finals of World Wrestling Championships in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan today. Both, however, still have a shot at a medal as y will contest for bronze tomorrow.  In women’s 59kg, Pooja Dhanda’s hopes of becoming India’s first multi-medallist woman wrestler were dashed as she lost her bronze medal bout. Being only Indian with two World Championships medals under his belt, Bajrang Punia was always top favourite to secure coveted gold in 65kg as top seed in his bracket.

Bajrang's journey to Tokyo 2020

Especially with kind of sterling form he has been in, reigning Asian champion h set his eyes on thing less than top podium, having missed it by a whisker last year. It, however, was t to be even though 25-year-old me a dazzling start to his campaign. Starting off with an easy 9-2 win over Poland’s Krzysztof Bienkowski, he looked sharp and hungry for gold. After coasting to a 3-0 win over David Habat of Slovenia, he followed it up by dominating rth Korean grappler, Jong Chol Son, 8-1. While that brought him Tokyo ticket and a place in semi-finals, it was next round where Bajrang’s resolve was t eugh to bring him a win. Even though he came back from 2-9 down to level 9-9 with former Asian champion Daulet Niazbekov in final two minutes, Kazakh was awarded win courtesy of his 4-point throw in second period.

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Ravi Kumar Dahiya's play 

While World number one Bajrang’s loss was a shock, U-23 World Championships silver medallist Ravi Kumar (57kg) was a revelation. Ravi me his senior debut at Asian Championships this year in April but showed terrific maturity in bagging India’s second Olympic quota of day. After kickstarting his challenge with a one-sided 11-0 win over Kim Sunggwon of Korea, he took it up furr by prevailing over European champion Arsen Harutyunyan 17-6. He did t stop re and continued his impeccable show against former world champion Yuki Takahashi whom he beat 6-1. This win also fetched him a prized berth at Olympics next year. Ultimately, Ravi’s stunning display was halted by Russian world champion Zaur Uguev. Ravi did storm back from 0-6 down to close to within 4-6 before embracing defeat. He will fight for his maiden Worlds medal tomorrow.

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Pooja Dhanda's lost streak

In n-Olympic category, Dhanda fought back tremendously against Asian Games silver medallist Pei Xingru to reduce gap between two after trailing 1-5. However, all she could man was a couple and h to accept a 3-5 loss at hands of Chinese. Rio Olympic bronze medallist Sakshi Malik (62kg) showed her grit in fighting her way back from a 2-10 deficit against Commonwealth Games champion Aminat eniyi of Nigeria but ultimately fell short 7-10 in her opening bout. For Commonwealth and Asian Games, bronze medallist Divya Kakran (68kg), reigning Olympic and former world champion Sara Dosho of Japan proved to be a tough hurdle as she lost 0-2 in first round.

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