Ritu Phogat wins silver in Senior U-23 World Wrestling Championships

New Delhi: Ritu Phogat won the silver medal women's 48 kg event in the U-23 Senior World Wrestling Championship at Poland.

The 23-year-old lost to her Turkish opponent Evin Demirhan in the gold medal bout to settle for the silver medal.

She is one the three Phogat sisters from Haryana. Her sisters Geeta Phogat and Babita Kumari, as well as cousin Vinesh Phogat, have established themselves as world-class wrestlers.

In the quarterfinal, she defeated Bulgarian Miglena Selishka before defeating Chinese Wrestler Jiang Zhu in the semifinal.

The competition was billed as Ritu’s first big test as a senior. This is the first time she competed against elite senior wrestlers from across the globe.

Ritu had won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Wrestling Championship last year in Singapore. Earlier this month, she won the National championship in Indore.

She also won a bronze medal at the Asian Championships in May this year.

In men's section, India have sent a 16-man strong team, eight each in Freestyle and Greco Roman.

Squad:

Men’s Freestyle: Utkarsh Kale (57kg), Ravinder (61kg), Bajrang (65kg), Vinod Kumar (70kg), Dinesh (74kg), Deepak (86kg), Vicky (97kg), Pushpendra Singh (125kg).
Greco Roman: Gyanendra (59kg), Manish (66kg), Yogesh (71kg), Manjeet (75kg), Deepak Gulia (80kg), Sunil (85kg), Sumit (98kg), Mehar Singh (130 kg).