The Olympic bronze medalist had earlier stunned Finland’s World Champion Petra Olli
India’s wrestler Sakshi Malik settled for a silver medal at the Don Kolov Nikola Petrov Ranking Series at Ruse, Bulgaria. The Rio Olympics Bronze medalist winner Malik lost to Sweden’s Henna Johansson in the finals on Friday, 1 March 2019.
Pooja Dhanda won a gold medal in the 59 kg category. In the men’s freestyle category, Sandeep Tomar lost his final in 61 kg and had to be satisfied with a silver medal. Asian Games gold medallist Bajrang Punia will wrestle in the final of the men’s 65 kg category against Jordan Oliver of USA on Saturday.
Sakshi vs Henna: As it happened
Sakshi Malik, in the much-anticipated Women’s 65 kg final began the scoring with a one point push out to her opponent but conceded a 4 point takedown before being down 1-6 at the half time.
65kg #DanKolov2019 Medal Match Results
? Henna JOHANSSON ??df. Sakshi MALIK ??, 8-3
? Petra OLLI ?? df. Adina POPESCU ??, via inj. def.
? Forrest MOLINARI ?? df. Maya NELSON, 6-3— United World Wrestling (@wrestling) March 1, 2019
In the second half, she conceded another 2 point takedown to the Swedish player which left her trailing 1-8. With more than a minute to leave the Malik did come back with a 2 point takedown but that was too late. She could not induce any harm to the Swedish player any further during the bout.
Finally, Sweden’s Henna Johansson won against India’s Sakshi Malik, 8-3, to clinch the Gold medal at the Don Kolov Nikola Petrov Ranking Series.
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Earlier, in the semifinals, India’s freestyle wrestler Malik had stunned the World Champion Petra Olli of Finland, 4-1.
SAKSHI (IND) takes out OLLI (FIN) in the semis!
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.#uww #wrestling pic.twitter.com/uQJPi7g8fE
— United World Wrestling (@wrestling) February 28, 2019
Malik had credited the Pro-Wrestling league for her preparation. [Tweet “She said, “From Season 1 onwards, PWL has given me the opportunity to wrestle against top foreign wrestlers, and that has helped me a lot in all major events in my career. Earlier, we got to fight with foreign wrestlers only when we went abroad, but since PWL has happened we have not only got opportunities to wrestle with them but also train with them.””]
Nonetheless, India leads the table of the Dan Kolov 2019 Women’s Wrestling after day 2 with 45 points.
#DanKolov2019 Women's Wrestling Team Scores (After Day 2)
?- India ?? (45 points)
?- Turkey ??(35 points)
?- Sweden ??(33 points)
Fourth – Ukraine ??(28 points)
Fifth – Greece ?? (25 points)— United World Wrestling (@wrestling) March 1, 2019
Sakshi Malik is all focussed to bring her second successive medal at the Olympics. She won a Bronze in Rio, she hopes to only go ahead in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The win would be a big surprise for Sakshi especially when 2018 was not as a much grateful year. She had to settle for a bronze at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast before failing to secure a medal at the Asian Games in Indonesia.
