Paris Olympics: Aman Sehrawat enters semifinals of men's 57kg freestyle wrestling

Paris, Aug 8 (IANS) India's lone male wrestler in the 2024 Games, Aman Sehrawat progressed to the men's 57kg freestyle wrestling semifinal after beating 2022 world champion Albania's Zelimkhan Abakarov via technical superiority (12-0) at the Paris Olympics, here on Thursday.

This was Aman's second successive win via technical superiority. Earlier, he defeated European Championships gold medallist Vladimir Egorov of North Macedonia to make it to the last-eight stage.

Aman will take on the number one seed from Japan Rei Higuchi in the semifinal later, in the evening.

Aman had a close start as he was searching for an opening in the initial minute. Meanwhile, Zelimkhan received a passivity warning for not engaging in any move. Aman, then, secured the first point as Zelimkhan failed to score during the 30-second passivity warning. He then pinned Zelimkhan to gain two additional points via takedown.

In the second period, Aman executed a double ankle-hold, and once both feet were locked in he turned Abakarov over for eight points in one move and extended his lead to 11-0 and swiftly sealed the bout via technical superiority.

The 20-year-old wrestler, who won the bronze medal at the Asian Games last year, has earned the Indian men’s wrestling contingent its very first quota for the 2024 Paris Olympics in the 57 kg freestyle category at the World Olympic Games Qualifiers.

In the world qualifiers, Aman secured a dominant technical superiority (12-2) victory over Chongsong Han in the quota match. He put on an impressive showing throughout the qualifiers as he beat Olympian Georgi Vangelov of Bulgaria 10-4 to move into the quarterfinals where he prevailed with a 12-2 win over Andrii Yatsenko of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, in the women's event, Anshu Malik, who is competing in her second Olympics, lost her opening bout 2-7 on points to Helen Louise Maroulis of the USA, a two-time Olympic medallist, in the 57kg pre-quarterfinal match.

However, Anshu, who is the first Indian woman wrestler to win a silver medal at the World Championships (2021), still has a chance for a medal through repechage if the American wrestler makes the final.