Nineteen-year-old Anshu will face 2016 Olympic champion Helen Maroulis in a gold medal match on Thursday.
Anshu Malik on Wednesday created history by becoming the first Indian woman wrestler to reach the final of the World Championships when she overcame junior European champion Solomiya Vinik, but Sarita Mor lost her semi-final and will fight for bronze in Oslo.
The reigning Asian champion, 19-year-old Anshu, stormed into the semi-finals right from the start and made a place in the history books by winning the 57kg category by technical superiority.
Only four Indian women wrestlers have won medals in the world and all of them – Geeta Phogat (2012), Babita Phogat (2012), Pooja Dhanda (2018) and Vinesh Phogat (2019) have won bronze medals.
After reaching the final, Anshu said, “It is very satisfying. I am very happy. It feels great. What I could not do in Tokyo Games, I did it here. I fought every match as my last fight. “
“The month after the Tokyo Games was very tough. I couldn’t perform as I wanted in the Games. I suffered an injury (elbow) and can’t tell how much pain I went through a month before the World Championships .
“I worked hard for this, I wanted to give my 100 percent and fight the final like my last match,” she said. Anshu lost her first round bout and repechage round in Tokyo Olympics.
Anshu became the sixth Indian after Bishamber Singh (1967), Sushil Kumar (2010), Amit Dahiya (2013), Bajrang Punia (2018) and Deepak Punia (2019) to make it to the Worlds Gold Medal match.
India have only one World Champion in Sushil so far and Anshu can create another history on Thursday.
Anshu’s victory also ensured India’s first medal from this edition of the event.
Meanwhile, Kiran (76kg) won her repechage round against Turkey’s Aysegul Ozbege in the morning session and reached the bronze play-offs, but lost the chance to a medal after a 1-2 loss against 2020 African champion Samar Hamza. I could not change.
Anshu was smart in her demeanor. At least three times, he effected take-down moves from Vinik’s left side and ended the bout with an exposure move. Nidani Girl started participating in the senior circuit only last year and has grown steadily since then.
Earlier, she was barely upset with Kazakhstan’s Nilufar Raimova, whom she defeated by technical superiority and later defeated Mongolia’s Davchimeg Erkhembayar 5-1 in the quarterfinals.
Experienced Sarita Mor defeated defending champion Linda Morris 8-2 in her opening bout and beat Germany’s Sandra Paruszewski 3-1 in the quarter-finals.
Sarita fought hard against defending European champion Bilyana Zhivkova Duodova of Bulgaria but lost 0-3. She will now fight for the bronze.
The defending Asian champions had a tough opening match against the 2019 world champions from Canada, but Trump pulled out with a tactical 8-2 win in the pre-quarterfinals.
A quick take-down move, followed by an exposure with some brilliant defense, put Sarita 7-0 at the end of the first period.
The only scoring point he conceded was a take-down move in the second period. He didn’t let Linda play her game keeping her in a locked position.
Later, the quarterfinals against Paruszewski turned out to be a tough contest, with the two wrestlers largely confined to a permanent fight that took a lot of them.
There was only one point-scoring move, a take down effected by Sarita late in the match and that sealed the result.
In 72kg, Divya Kakran stunned Ksenia Burakova with a ‘fall win’, but lost by technical superiority to under-23 world champion Masako Furuich of Japan.
The 2020 Asian champion Divya fought for her heart in both the bouts and came out of difficult positions at times, but her hasty moves and over-aggression cost her the quarterfinals against the Japanese.
Ritu Malik (68kg) was defeated by Ukraine’s Anastasia Lavrenchuk in a qualification bout that lasted only 15 seconds. It looked like Ritu’s knee got hurt.
Pooja Jatt (53kg) also lost the repechage by falling to Luisa Elizabeth Melendres of Ecuador.
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