Wrestling: Bajrang Punia, Ravi Dahiya lose in trials; bow out from Paris Olympics qualification race

India’s 2020 Tokyo Olympics medallists Ravi Dahiya and Bajrang Punia bowed out of contention from the 2024 Paris Games qualification race after suffering losses in their respective bouts of the national selection trials for the upcoming qualification tournaments on Sunday.

Punia, who led the charge in the protest against the former Wrestling Federation of India President Brij Bushan Sharan Singh last year, was bettered 1-9 by Rohit Kumar in the men’s 65kg semi-final.

The 30-year-old Punia had earlier beaten Ravinder in the opening round of the trials 3-3 on criteria after the latter lost a caution point.

As per a PTI report, Punia left the Sports Authority of India centre in Sonepat, where the trials are being conducted, soon after his loss and did not even wait for the dope test conducted by the National Anti Doping Agency.

Punia’s semi-final opponent Rohit, on the other hand, lost to Sujeet Kalakal in the final.

Interestingly, Kalakal had challenged the decision to hand Punia a direct entry to the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games without trials last year in a court and lost.

Earlier in the day, the 26-year-old Dahiya too crashed out following successive losses in the men’s 57kg trials, which were held in the Nordic format instead of the direct knockouts.

Dahiya, who is returning from a long injury layoff, lost a high scoring contest against the young Aman Sehrawat 13-14.

Sehrawat had shot to fame last year, winning medals internationally for India in the absence of Dahiya.

The Tokyo Olympics silver medallist then lost to the U20 Asian Champion Udit 8-10 to bow out.

Sehrawat eventually went on to win the 57kg trials.

The winners of the trials conducted by the Indian Olympic Association ad-hoc panel, will represent India at the Asian Championships in Bishek, Kyrgyzstan from April 19-21 and the World Olympic Qualifiers in Istanbul from May 9-12.

Antim Panghal, in women’s 53kg, is the only Indian wrestler to have earned a 2024 Paris Olympics quota so far.

Trial winners for Asian C’ships and World Olympic Qualifiers

Men’s Freestyle: Aman Sehrawat (57kg), Sujeet Kalakal (65kg) Jaideep (74kg), Deepak Punia (86kg), Deepak Nehra (97kg) and Sumit Malik (125kg)

Greco Roman: Sumeet (60kg), Ashu (66kg), Vikas (77kg), Sunil Kumar (87kg), Naveen (130kg)