Junior Asian Champion Deepak Punia earned a shot at the world championship title after reaching the final of the 86kg event in the junior world wrestling championship here.
In a dominating show, Punia lost only two points en route the final, where he will fight it out with Turkey’s Arif Ozen. The two points he lost was in the semifinal against Moldova’s Ivan Nedealco, where he scored a 6-2 win.
In his previous bouts, Punia beat Patrik Szurovszki (7-0) and Jayong Jin (11-0) without losing a single point.
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Another Indian in fray, Naveen Sihag settled for silver in the 57kg after losing the final 1-12 to Russia’s Akhmed Idrisov.
Medal hope remains alive for Sachin Rathi and Sanjeet too as they will fight for bronze after losing their semifinal and quarterfinal respectively.
Rathi lost his 74kg semifinal to Abubakr Abakarov by technical superiority (0-11 while Sanjeet lost his 92kg quarterfinal 2-7 to Iran’s Abbas Ali but made the repechage round.
Suraj Rajkumar lost in the quarterfinals 3-6 to Panagiotis Ioakeimidis in the 61kg category. Disappointment was in store for Sandeep Singh Mann, who lost his 79kg repechage round to Ukraine’s Adlan Bataiev.
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