World Cadet Wrestling Championships: India wins maiden freestyle team title as Aman Gulia and Sagar Jaglan clinch gold medals

World Cadet Wrestling Championships: India wins maiden freestyle team title as Aman Gulia and Sagar Jaglan clinch gold medals

Sagar Jaglan and Aman Gulia

Breaking the reign of Russia and Iran at the World Cadet Wrestling Championships, India has won its maiden freestyle team title. This is India’s first team freestyle title at any World Championships. India finished with 147 points to take the top spot ahead of the USA, who too had an impressive outing, followed by Russia.

In the past nine tournaments, Russia and Iran shared the top honors with the former winning eight times while Iran won only once in 2018. But Russia’s domination came to a screeching halt at the ongoing edition with dismal performances in the finals. Russia needed to win two of their three finals on Wednesday but they failed to capture even one, which places them third behind the USA.

Aman, Sagar clinch gold while Jaskaran Singh settles for silver at World Cadet Wrestling Championships

Jaskaran Singh at World Cadet Wrestling Championships 2021
Jaskaran Singh

Budding wrestlers Aman Gulia and Sagar Jaglan on Tuesday emerged the new world champions in their respective categories as India put up an impressive show. Gulia flattened American Luke Joseph Lilledahl for a 5-2 win in the 48kg final. Jaglan on the other hand defeated James Mockler Rowley 4-0 in the 80kg summit clash to clinch the gold.

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Gulia was the more impressive of the two Indian champions having conceded only three en route his way to the summit. Sahil bagged the bronze in the 110kg by pinning Kazakhstan’s Alikhan Kussainov inside the first two-minute period. Vaibhav Patil lost his bronze medal play-off 5-7 to Azerbaijan’s Javid Javadov in 55kg.

Jaskaran Singh went toe to toe with Uzbekistan’s Kamronbek Kadamov for the gold medal. But the Indian faltered in the final conceding a 6-2 defeat to the Uzbek. Jaskaran had advanced to the final with an identical  6-2 win over Azerbaijan’s Abdulrahman Ibrahimov in the semifinals but failed to shine in the summit clash.

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