India ends with three medals at Cadet World Championship

SARAJEVO: Wrestler Monu today won a bronze medal in the 46kg Freestyle to help India finish their campaign with three medals, including a gold and a silver at the World Cadet Championship here.

India finished on fifth position in the Men's Freestyle competitions by securing 37 points. Earlier, Anil (gold) and Ankus (silver) had bagged the medals for India.

In the run-up to bronze medal play-off bout today, Monu defeated Asgar Mammadliyev of Azerbaijan 4-2 and Rustambek Juraev of Uzbekistan 2-1 to make it to the semifinals.

But in his semifinal bout, Monu lost to Pilidis Georgios of Greece 4-2.

Monu, however, came back strongly in his bronze-medal match, when he comfortably defeated Dzmitry Yarmplchyk of Belarus 11-0.

"After winning all the games till quarterfinals, I was confident of going for gold this time but losing a semifinal with a margin of two points was really disappointing for me. But I didn't give up and made a strong comeback winning one-sided bronze medal match," said Monu.

In the 100kg category, Nasir Hussain lost the bronze medal after going down to Yakup Yerlikaya of Turkey by technical fall, 2-12, shattering the hope of a third-place finish.

Earlier, in quarter-final, Khasanboy Rakhimov of Uzbekistan had beaten Hussain (by fall, 10-5). In Repechage Hussain won by technical fall, 10-0, against Aleksandar Pantelic of Serbia and in the prequarterfinal (1/8), the Indian had floored Tibor Medgyes Hungary 4-0.