Pooja Dhanda brings home Bronze medal at Wrestling World Championships

10/26/2018

It was a bright day for India at the Wrestling World Championship as 24-year-old, Pooja Dhanda won the bronze medal with a magnificent 10-7 win against Grace Jacob Bullen in Budapest. This is the second major medal for Pooja this year having won a silver the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast.

A girl from Gudana village near Haryana also became the only woman to win a medal at the World Championship, against 2017 European champion Grace Jacob Bullen. She registered this as a second big win as previously she had also bagged a silver at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast.

Wrestler Pooja hit a scoreboard with 4-1 lead which she sighted on a counter attack. However, she united it with roll and took a 6-1 lead by the end of the first period. After the restart she dazed the Norwegian with another four-point throw, to zoom to a 10-2 lead. Even though her opponent tried to launch a comeback, she had done enough to seal the bronze.

Rio Olympic bronze medallist Sakshi Malik failed to depart for the medal round at a big-ticket event, losing round 2-3 to Hungary’s Marianna Sastin. Performing a defensive in last second she failed to make the round with 2-1

Vijay (55kg), Gaurav Sharma (63kg), Kuldeep Malik (72kg) and Harpreet Singh (82kg) crashed out losing their qualification rounds.