Sarita Mor went down to 2-4 to to Giullia Penalber of Bulgaria in the title bout.© Twitter
India’s Sarita Mor won a silver medal, while Kuldeep Malik bagged a bronze in their respective events at the Matteo Pellicone Ranking Series wrestling event in Rome. Indian grapplers secured three medals in the Greco-Roman category on Friday, taking the country’s tally to five medals.
Asian champion Sarita beat Kazakhstan’s Altynay Satylgan 4-1 in the women’s 57kg quarter-finals and then defeated Emma Tissina by a fall in the semi-finals to assure herself of a silver.
Later, Sarita went down to 2-4 to to Giullia Penalber of Bulgaria in the title bout to settle for the silver.
The other Indian in the same weight category, Anshu Malik lost 7-10 to Penalber in the semifinals. She forfeited her bronze medal contest against Italy’s Francesca Indelicato due to an injury. Malik had won a silver medal in the event last year.
In the 68kg category, Nisha bowed out in the qualifiers after losing 3-10 to Rio 2016 Olympian Mimi Hristova of Bulgaria. The Indian then lost 2-3 to American Alexandrima Junis Glaude in the repechage contest.
In the 76kg category, 2016 Olympic bronze medallist Elmira Syzdykova of Kazakhstan defeated India’s Kiran 10-3 in the quarter-final.
Among Indian male grapplers, Kuldeep Malik defeated 2014 world champion Chingiz Labazanov of Russia 10-9 to secure the bronze medal. Kuldeep had earlier lost his opening round match to reigning European champion Selcuk Can of Turkey.
Last year’s gold medallist here, Gurpreet Singh, suffered a shock 11-12 loss in the 82kg qualification match against Richard Perkins of USA.
The other Indian in the same weight category, Harpreet Singh, also crashed out in the qualification round, losing by a fall against Turkey’s Salih Aydin.