Wrestling: Aman Sehrawat clinches men's 57kg gold at Zagreb Open

Zagreb (Croatia), Jan 11 (IANS) Reigning Asian champion Aman Sehrawat won the gold medal in the men's 57kg at the Zagreb Open wrestling tournament, beating China’s Zou Wanhao in the summit clash.

Sehrawat, who took the bronze last year, defeated Wanhao via technical superiority (10-0) to win the first medal in the 2024 edition of the Ranking Series on Wednesday night.

En route to his gold medal, Sehrawat beat Roberti Dingashvili of Georgia 11-0 in the semifinals after defeating Zane Richards of the USA with a similar margin in the quarterfinals. The Indian began his campaign with a dominating 15-4 win over Muhammet Karavus of Turkey in the qualification round.

Olympian Deepak Punia (86kg) and Yash (74kg), the other two wrestlers competing on the day failed to win medals.

Punia suffered 2-6 loss to Kazakhstan's Azamat Dauletbekov in the qualification round. However, Dauletbekov progressed to the final and handed the India a chance for the bronze medal via repechage.

Punia beat Ukraine’s Valentyn Babii 4-1 in one of the two repechage rounds but a 3-4 loss to Evsem Shvelidze of Georgia ended his medal hope.

Yash, meanwhile, was defeated by USA’s Quincy Monday via technical superiority in the round of 16 of the men’s 74kg.

Indian wrestlers will compete in this tournament as neutral athletes due to the United World Wrestling’s suspension of the Wrestling Federation of India.