Wrestler Bajrang wins bronze, gives India second medal

Budapest : Wrestler Bajrang gave India its second medal from the World Championship as he won the bronze medal in the 60kg freestyle category here Tuesday.

Bajrang’s bronze is the second after Amit Kumar’s silver won Monday, making it the first time that India won two medals from the World Championships.

Bajrang clinched the bronze in the 60kg freestyle category with a convincing 9-2 win over Mongolia’s Nyam-Ochir Enkhsaikhan.

It was the Mongolian who got a good start with a take down but 20-year-old Bajrang came back strongly in the dying seconds and pushed Nyam out of the mat to level the scores 2-2.

From then on, Bajrang kept clinching points and didn’t give the Mongolian to stand his ground.

Early in the day, Bajrang had fallen out of the race for the gold medal ater he lost 0-7 to Vladimir Dubov of Bulgaria. But he was back in the hunt for a medal, as Dubov reached the final making the Indian eligible for the repechage rounds.

Bajrang was in his elements in the repechage round. He first beat Shogo Maeda of Japan and Ivan Guidea of Romania before getting the better of Enkhsaikhan in the bronze-medal bout. Other Indians, Pawan Kumar (84kg) and Hitender (120kg) had made early exits from the competition.