Commonwealth gold medallist woman grappler Vinesh Phogat and silver medallist Sakshi Malik on Saturday booked quota places for the Rio Games in their respective weight divisions at the second world Olympic qualifying tournament in Istanbul.
Vinesh and Sakshi made the cut for Rio by virtue of making the finals of women’s 48kg and 58kg respectively on Day Two of the event. This is the last opportunity to make the cut for the August bound Games and only the top two finishers in each weight category are eligible for a quota berth.
It was a commendable performance from Vinesh she put behind the disappointment of getting disqualified in Mongolia for being 400 gm overweight.
Vinesh thrashed Nataliya Pulkovska of Ukraine 10-0 in her qualification bout before putting away Julie Martine Sabatie of France 11-0 in the pre-quarter-final battle. She beat Yumi Lee of Korea 11-1 in the quarter-final and Evin Demirhan of Turkey 12-2 in the semi-finals to reach the gold medal round rather comfortably.
“Going to the Olympics has been my dream right from the day I started wrestling. I am glad that I could achieve that today. It wasn’t an easy journey. I had to quickly cast aside whatever happened in Mongolia and concentrate on the task at hand,” said Vinesh after reaching the final.
Meanwhile, Sakshi, who replaced Geeta Phogat in 58kg after the veteran was handed a temporary suspension for forfeiting her bout in the previous qualifying tournamen got the better of Irene Garcia Garrido of Spain 10-0, followed by Zhydachevska Kateryna of Romania 12-2 in the quarter-finals and then beat China’s Lan Zhang in a closely-fought semi-final to make the final.
Shilpi Sheron (63kg), Lalita (53kg), Geetika Jakhar (69kg), Kiran (75kg), could not make the semi-finals.
While Lalita, who replaced suspended Babita Kumari, crashed out in the qualification round itself after going down to Natalia Budu 2-4, Geetika bowed out in the pre-quarter-final after losing to Tamyra Mariama Mensah of USA 0-5 and Kiran was defeated by Gozal Zutova of Azerbaijan 0-2 in the qualifiers.
