Vinesh Phogat creates HISTORY, becomes only Indian woman to clinch 2 World Wrestling Championship medals

Star Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat beat Sweden's Jonna Malmgren to clinch bronze medal in 53kg at the World Wrestling Championships 2022, also India's first in this edition of the tournament, on Wednesday (September 14). This is Vinesh's second medal at the Worlds and she is the only Indian woman who had acheived this feat. 

Earlier, Vinesh, a 2019 world championships bronze medalist, was handed a shocking 7-0 defeat by 2022 Asian championships silver medalist Khulan Batkhuyag of Mongolia in the qualification round. The Indian wrestler trailed Batkhuyag 3-0 at the end of the opening round and conceded another four points in the final moments to lose the bout. Khulan Batkhuyag stormed through to the final by winning her next matches giving Vinesh Phogat a likely shot at the bronze medal. 

The repechage round gave her another chance to enter into the battle for a bronze medal at least. In her first repechage match on Wednesday, she defeated 2018 Asian Games silver medallist Zhuldyz Eshimova of Kazakhstan by 4-0. She attained a Victory by Fall (VFA). Her next match saw her win against Azerbaijan`s Leyla Gurbanova on basis of Win by injury (VIN). After winning this match, she progressed to the bronze medal match.

__'s @Phogat_Vinesh wins her 2nd #WorldChampionship _ after defeating Sweden's Joana Malmgren 8-0

Great resilience by #VineshPhogat after shocking 1st round defeat yesterday.

She has now also become 1__st Indian woman to have won 2__ World Championships medals in #Wrestling ____ pic.twitter.com/J0zpoWxKGz — SAI Media (@Media_SAI) September 14, 2022

In the women's 57kg, 2021 world bronze medalist Sarita Mor won her opening bout 4-2 against world U-23 bronze medalist Hannah Taylor of Canada. Sarita then lost to Anhelina Lysak of Poland 0-7.

Mansi Ahlawat was eliminated after her defeat to Jowita Maria Wrzesien of Poland 3-5 in the 59kg quarterfinal. The Indian was out of repechage contention also after Jowita lost in the semifinal.

In 68kg, Nisha Dahiya will fight for bronze on Thursday. She advanced to the semifinal after defeating Sofiya Georgieva of Bulgaria 11-0. But she later went down 4-5 to reigning junior world champion Ami Ishii of Japan in the semifinals.

Nisha led 2-0 and then 4-3 but her Japanese opponent overpowered her in the dying seconds.

Reetika lost 2-6 in the first round to Kendra Augustine Jocelyne Dacher of France in the 72kg contest.