By Our Special Correspondent
Vinesh Phogat saved his all-round performance till the end by defeating Sweden's Jonah Malmgren to win bronze at the World Wrestling Championships in Belgrade on Wednesday.
Vinesh, who won bronze in 2019, became the first Indian woman to win two medals at Wrestling World Championships.
The bronze added momentum after she opened her campaign with a loss to Mongolia's Khulan Batkhuag. In her first bout, Batkhuyag won 7-0 and she did not fight. Vinesh thanks Batkhuyag as the Mongolian reaches the final, meaning Vinesh has a chance to clinch the bronze medal through the repechage.
In her first repackaged bout, Vinesh defeated 2022 Senior Asian Championship bronze medalist Zuldiz Eshimova of Kazakhstan in 74 seconds. She picked up her first points with a takedown move and ended the bout by pinning her Kazakh opponent to the mat 20 seconds later.
Vinesh got a lucky break when Azerbaijan's Leila Gurbanova withdrew from their second round repechage match due to injury. This paved the way for Vinesh, who now missed out on a second world medal.
The Indian player looked aggressive from the start as she took an early 2-0 lead and took control of the bout. Malmgren, the 2021 junior world champion, could not clear her left hand from Vinesh's grip and the Indian dug in hard to scalp the takedown.
There was a bit of an injury scare as Vinesh seemed to have hurt her knee, but she shrugged it off. She played the waiting game and put up a solid defence.
Early in the second half, Vinesh received a verbal warning from the referee for being too passive, and that sparked the Indian: she launched an explosive move and scored two more points to extend her lead to 4-0. It showed that Vinesh can score at will.
She deliberately slowed the tempo again before taking a 6-0 lead over Malmgren. It was a tactically good bout from Vinesh who didn't give his opponent too many chances.
Vinesh scored two more from a takedown to wrap up the win and let out a sigh of relief, finally breaking into her trademark smile.
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