Junior World Wrestling Championship | Ritu Phogat loses against Turkey's Evin Demirhan, wins silver

11/25/2017

Ritu Phogat failed to register a win against Evin Demirhan in the gold medal bout of the Under-23 Senior World Wrestling Championship in Poland. The National Champion from Haryana, who was competing in the 48kg category, had to settle for a silver medal as she lost on criteria after drawing 4-4.

After winning the National championship in Indore this month and the bronze medal at the Asian Championships in May earlier this year, Ritu Phogat had a real chance of going all the way in the World Wrestling Championship.

The manner in which she had reached the final contributed to the hype all the more. In the quarter-final, Ritu had defeated Bulgarian Wrestler Selishka 4-2 points quite comfortably before she overcame Chinese Wrestler Jiang Zhu 4-3 points in the semi-final. After she had ended 2016 on a positive note becoming the most expensive female wrestler at the Pro Wrestling League auction, bagging a 36 lakhs rupee-contract with the Jaipur Ninjas franchise, Phogat looked en route to replicate that in 2017 as well.

The 23-year-old Phogat came into the game quite confidently and was leading at the break 2-0, before the Turkish bronze medalist closed her down soon and led 4-2 on a takedown and caution. Phogat scored a takedown in the critical final five seconds, but it was not enough as she lost on criteria, due to the caution, 4-4. It marks Demirhan’s fifth World medal and first gold.

According to the rules of United World Wrestling, "When the bout ends by a victory by points at the end of the regular time and the loser scoring one or several technical points, the winner gets 3 points and the loser 1 point."

Apart from her, young wrestler Divya Kakran also came close to a medal as she lost to Danu Domikaityte of Lithuania by fall in the bronze medal bout.