Indian wrestler continue to bring laurel to the country as Sumit Malik wins gold medal in the men’s freestyle 125 kg wrestling at Gold Coast CWG after his opponent Nigeria’s Sinivie Boltic was ruled out of the final due to an injury at the 21st Commonwealth Games today.
Sumit defeated Pakistan’s defending champion Tayab Raza 10-4 in a dramatic bout. Sumit was leading in the initial stages of the matches but Raza came back to reduce the deficit to 2-3. Sumit didn’t allow his rival to dominate as he displayed incredible defense and held himself at standing position despite the Pakistani grabbing one of his leg. The Indian counterattacked and eventually won comfortably with a big margin.
Earlier, Sumit made an incredible comeback to win this bout against Korey Jarvis of Canada. Lagging 0-2 initially, the Indian turned it around to make it 3-2 before drawing level at 3-3. In the dying moments, Sumit flipped Jarvis to win 6-4 in the end.
Among others, Rio Olympic bronze medallist Sakshi Malik went down to Aminat Adeniyi of Nigeria 3-6 in a nervous bout to end her golden dreams. She will try for bronze now.
In women’s 50kg freestyle wrestling, Vinesh Phogat, defeated Rupinder Kaur to enter final, while Somveer defeated Australia’s Jayden Lawrence 7-0 for a victory by fall in the 86kg freestyle repechage to go through to the bronze medal match.
