Indian women grappler Pooja Gehlot (53kg) has entered the finals after beating Turkey’s Zeynep Yetgil in the semifinals of the UWW Under-23 World Championships 2019 in Budapest last night. Pooja defeated Yetgil, a gold medallist at the Junior European Wrestling Championships in 2018. In the summit clash today, Pooja will be up against Haruno Okuno of Japan.
No Indian has ever won a gold in the last three editions of the UWW Under-23 World Championships. Meanwhile, Ravinder had settled for a silver medal on Wednesday after going down to Kyrgyzstan’s Ulukbek Zholdoshbekov in the 61kg final. It was a fantastic display from the youngster who started from the qualifying stages, where she demolished Ekaterina Verbina of Russia 8-3.
In the quarter-finals, Gehlot blazed through her bout, notching up a commanding 8-0 win to set up a semi-final showdown against Zeynep Yetgil, gold medallist at the Junior European Wrestling Championships in 2018.