Under-23 World champ Aman Sehrawat qualifies for Asian Championships in place of injured Ravi Dahiya

With top Indian freestyle wrestlers Bajrang Punia and Ravi Dahiya missing out on the national selection trials for the Asian Wrestling Championships on Friday due to injury, the spotlight fell on some of the promising youngsters who will be shouldering Indian hopes.
Aman Sehrawat, who became the first Indian to win a gold medal at the U-23 World Championship last year, is one such youngster. The 18-year-old is in good form after picking up the bronze medal at the recent Zagreb Ranking Series event.
In Dahiya’s 57kg category, in which he won a Tokyo silver, Sehrawat impressed from the off. After winning a comfortable first bout, he overturned a 0-4 deficit against Atish Todkar of Maharashtra to prevail 14-4, showing good touch in an impressive showing.
The surprise of the day came in the 70kg category, where Mulayam Yadav of Uttar Pradesh, another junior World Championship medall, defeated 2022 Commonwealth Games gold medall Naveen Malik 7-4.
Among the promising crop of wrestlers that missed out were Sagar Jaglan and Sujeet. The latter missed out to fellow Haryana wrestler Anuj Kumar in the 65kg category, while Sagar was eliminated in the final playoff round of the 74kg category Delhi’s Yash Tushir, who booked his flight to Astana, where the event will be held between April 7 to 15, winning 8-3. Yash won the gold at the 2022 National Games, while Sagar is the wrestling nationals champion.
The event was initially meant to be held in New Delhi, but governing body United World Wrestling (UWW) moved it out of the country after the sports minry appointed an Oversight Committee in charge of the day-to-day operations of the sport after allegations of sexual harassment and intimidation were levelled against Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president Brij Bhushan Singh.
Punia and Dahiya, who missed out due to a wr and knee injury respectively, were members of the group of wrestlers that protested against Brij Bhushan in Delhi in January.
The Oversight Committee, chaired former boxer Mary Kom which also has the presence of wrestlers Babita Phogat and Yogeshwar Dutt, hosted the selection trials.
One of those in protesting contingent, Deepak Punia, a former World Championship silver-medall, comfortably sealed his place in the 92kg category of the Asian event. 2022 CWG bronze medall Deepak Nehra also made the cut in the 97kg category,
The selection trials for women wrestlers will be held in New Delhi on Saturday.
Qualified wrestlers for Asian C’ships
Freestyle:
57kg: Aman Sehrawat61kg: Pankaj65kg: Anuj Kumar70kg: Mulayam Yadav74kg: Yash Tushir79kg: Deepak86kg: Jonty Kumar92kg: Deepak Punia97kg: Deepak Nehra125kg: Anirudh
Greco-Roman:
55kg: Rupin60kg: Sumit63kg: Neeraj67kg: Ashu72kg: Vikas77kg: Sajan82kg: Rohit Dahiya87kg: Sunil Kumar97kg: Narender Cheema130kg: Naveen