Senior Asian Wrestling Championship: Geeta Phogat wins bronze, Hitender Beniwal misses out

NEW DELHI: Geeta Phogat bagged a bronze in the Women's freestyle 58kg category, while Hitender Beniwal lost his bronze-medal play-off bout to return empty-handed in the Men's 125kg division in the Senior Asian Wrestling Championship in Doha.

Geeta defeated Thi Loan Nguyen of Vietnam by fall verdict in the bronze medal play-off, to settle for the third position last night, according to the Wrestling Federation of India.

Geeta earned five classification points in the match and also came out with four technical points. Her opponent could not get off the mark and the Indian won rather convincingly.

En-route to the bronze medal play-off, Geeta lost in only one pool bout to Kaori Icho of Japan, the Olympic gold medallist.

Having returned from an injury lay-off, Geeta won her first match against Salomat Kuchimova of Uzbekistan, by fall (11-0) to enter the next round.

She then defeated Ting Zhang Zhou of China 6-4 to secure her second win of the day but against Icho, the Indian grappler failed to score even a single point. The Japanese scored eight technical points and five classification points in the semifinal.

However, Geeta entered the repechage round and ultimately settled for a bronze.

Meanwhile, Hitender also made it to the bronze-medal play-off but could not cross the hurdle.

Hitender lost to Kazakhstan's Aiaal Lazarev, who won five classification points and eight technical points, even as the Indian failed to get off the mark.

Other Indians in the fray -- Rahul Balasaheb Aware (57kg), Rajneesh Dalal (65kg) and Somveer (86kg) -- crashed out of the tournament early in their respective weight categories.

While Somveer suffered a loss in the qualifiers itself, the remaining wrestlers, although managed clear the qualification outings, none of them could advance.