Anshu Malik is also out of the race for bronze medal
Tokyo, Aug 5 (IANS)| Indian women’s wrestler Vinesh Phogat’s hopes of reaching the repechage round were shattered after two-time world champion Belarus Vanessa Kalazinskaya lost in the semi-finals of the women’s freestyle 53kg category and bowed out of the hunt for the bronze medal. Vinesh was defeated by Vanessa 9-3 in the quarterfinal match at Mat-B of Makuhari Messe Hall I. Despite losing this match, she could have won the bronze medal but for that, Vanessa needed to win her semi-final bout. However, Vanessa was defeated by Qianyu Pang of China.
According to the rules of the wrestling competition in the Olympics, the losers against the final finalists have a chance to fight each other against the losing semifinalists for the bronze medal. Earlier, Vinesh defeated Sofia Magdalena Matsson of Sweden 7-1 in a round-of-8 match.
Meanwhile, another Indian woman wrestler Anshu Malik has also bowed out of the bronze medal race. On Thursday, Anshu lost 1-5 to Valeria Koblova of Russia in the repechage round-1 of the 57 kg category. Anshu had a chance to win bronze by winning both his repechage matches. In the pre-quarterfinals, Anshu lost to Irina Kurachkina. Irina now reached the finals and hence Anshu got a chance to play repechage.
In the pre-quarterfinals, Belarusian Irina defeated Anshu, while in the quarter-finals she defeated Valeria Koblova of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC). She then defeated Bulgaria’s Evelina Nikolova in the semi-finals. Her entry in the final gave both Anshu and Valeria a chance to beat semifinalist Evelina for the bronze medal but Anshu lost her first match against Valeria 1–5.
(Disclaimer: This news has been published directly from news agency’s Syndicate feed. It has not been edited by AnyTV News team.)