India’s sole medal contender Sushil Kumar narrowly missed the bronze medal finishing fourth in the 37th World Wrestling Championship which concluded at the Madison Square Garden at New York. Fighting a tough bout, Sushil Kumar lost to Azerbaijan’s Abdullaev Arif Yadulla 8-9 in the 60kg category, according to information reaching here today. Though India failed to win any medal in the competition, Sushil Kumar and Sujit Mann (74 kg), secured berths for the next year’s Olympic Games at Athens. Maan made it to Athens even though he lost his quarterfinal bout against Hadi Habibi of Iran yesterday. The top ten men and five women in each division qualify for the Athens Olympics, which will be first Games to feature women’s wrestling. Georgia won the men’s team title edging the hosts US while the champions of freestyle wrestling, Iran, settled for the third position. Japan won the women’s team title. The other members of the Indian contingent also put up a decent show before bowing out. In the 120-kg class, Jagdish Kaliraman lost to Aleksi Modebadze of Georgia 0-7 in the third round to finish 16th. In other weight categories Ramesh Kumar, Anuj Kumar and Kripa Shanker Patel made early exits. In the women’s section, Kamini Yadav gave a tough fight to Fani Psatha of Greece before going down 5-8 in the third round of 48-kg class. Sonika Kaliraman lost to Svetlana Sayenko of Ukraine by technical fall in third round in the 72-kg category.
