After wrestler Mohit Kumar, its Priya Malik who is creating history. On Thursday, the Indian wrestler defeated Laura Celine Kuehn of Germany by 5-0 to become the 76kg world champion. She has now won both the U17 (2021 & 2022) and U20 (2023) world titles.
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With the win, Priya became only the second female Indian wrestler to become U20 World Champion. The 22-year-old went the whole tournament without conceding a single point in any of her matches. In her final match, Priya Malik was playing with cut suffered above her left eye, which also caused the play to stop twice due to bleeding suffered by her.
However, this did not her fast leg attacks that rattled the German who could not make even one point-scoring move.
Meanwhile, Antim Panghal also stormed into the title clash in the reaching the 53kg category at the junior wrestling World Championships on Thursday. Antim Panghal is leading India’s challenge at the World Under-20 Wrestling Championships 2023 in Amman, Jordan from August 14 to 20. She became the first Indian woman to become an U20 wrestling world champion in Sofia, Bulgaria, last year. She will compete in the women’s 53kg bracket again.
For the first time ever, four Indian woman wrestlers have reached the gold medal bouts at the junior World Championships as Savita (62kg) and Antim Kundu (65kg) also stayed unbeaten on Thursday. Harshita is also in contention of a bronze in 72kg competition.
The Under 20 World Championship is being held at Amman City in Jordan from August 14 to 20. The week-long event at the Amman International Stadium will see bouts in men’s and women’s freestyle and men’s Greco-Roman categories. A total of 30 Indian wrestlers – one in each medal event – are competing in the 46th edition of the junior wrestling championships.