Young Anshu Malik was the lone Indian woman wrestler to win a medal at the individual World Cup, grabbing a silver in the 57kg category.
Anshu, who is coming up from the junior ranks, clinched her third medal at the senior level from as many tournaments. She lost the gold medal bout 1-5 to Moldova’s Anastasia Nichita on Wednesday night.
She had won a bronze at the Asian Championship early this year in New Delhi and a silver at Mattio Pellicone event in Rome in January.
She is gradually making the 57kg category her own despite presence of World championship medallist Pooja Dhanda and experienced Sarita Mor in the same weight class.
Anshu began with a 4-2 win over Azerbaijan’s Alyona Kolesnik and followed it up with 3-1 victory over Germany’s Laura Mertens in the quarterfinals.
In the semi-final, she outplayed Russia’s Veronika Chumikova, recording a victory by fall.
Another Indian grappler Pinki also did well to reach the 55kg semi-finals, where she lost to Belarusian Iryna Kurachkina. She later lost the bout for bronze to Russia’s Olga Khoroshavtseva by technical superiority.
In Men’s wrestler Deepak Punia and Gourav Baliyan lost their semifinal bouts in the 86kg and 79kg respectively. Deepak Punia and Gourav Baliyan now will fight for Bronze. The twin loss in semifinals today means that the 24 member Indian contingent will end the Individual World Cup without a single gold medal