Ravi Dahiya, Vinesh Phogat And Naveen Make It 6 Wrestling Golds For India At CWG 2022
It’s yet another hat-trick of gold medals in the sport of wrestling for India as Ravi Kumar Dahiya, Vinesh Phogat and Naveen won the yellow metal in their respective categories.
Their efforts come a day after the trio of Bajrang Punia, Sakshi Malik and Deepak Punia won gold medals on Friday. The total tally of golds from wrestling now stand at 6, the most from any single discipline at CWG 2022 for India.
Earlier, it was Pooja Gehlot, who started India’s medal rush in wrestling on Saturday as she clinched the bronze medal in the women’s 50kg category. Pooja Sihag also won a bronze medal in the women’s 76kg category. Deepak Nehra rounded the brilliant day off for India with the third bronze of the night as he beat Pakistan’s Tayab Raza in the men’s 97kg category.
Wrestler Ravi Dahiya won his first major gold medal as he beat Nigeria’s Ebikewenimo Welson in the final of the men’s 57kg final by technical superiority at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. His gold was followed by that of Vinesh Phogat who won all three of her matches in the women’s 54kg category, to clinch the yellow metal. The winner in the category was decided by the Nordic system, wherein all competitors play against each other in a round robin system, with the wrestler with most wins getting the gold. Vinesh won all three of her matches with relative ease.
This was Vinesh’s third gold medal in the Commonwealth Games. She also has a World Championships bronze and a gold and bronze at the Asian Games. This is a big comeback for Vinesh who suffered a major meltdown at the Tokyo Olympics where she was one of the top contenders for the gold medal.Naveen was equally good as he beat Pakistan’s Muhammad Sharif Tahir 9-0 in the final to end a fantastic campaign in the men’s 74kg category.
Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Ravi Kaumar Dahiya was too good for his field. He won both his bouts — against Suraj Singh of New Zealand and Pakistan’s Asad Ali — by technical superiority and did the same in the final as well.
Ravi is a World Championships bronze medallist from 2019. He has also won three gold medals at Asian Championships.