Olympic medallist Yogeshwar Dutt came from behind to register a brilliant win in the deciding bout as Haryana Hammers prevailed over the Uttar Pradesh Wizards 4-3 in a Pro Wrestling League match in No
Olympic medallist Yogeshwar Dutt came from behind to register a brilliant win in the deciding bout as Haryana Hammers prevailed over the Uttar Pradesh Wizards 4-3 in a Pro Wrestling League match in Noida on Saturday.
Haryana Hammers’ Livan Lopez Azcuy stunned World Championship silver medallist Purevjav Unurbat, representing UP Wizards, in the men’s 74kg, while UP captain Babita scored an upset win over Haryana’s Tatyana Kit, also a World Championship bronze medallist in the women’s 53kg bout.
The scores were tied at 3-3 with the onus on Hammers captain and icon player Dutt to bail the team out.
And Dutt did just that by posting a 9-4 win by fall verdict over Vikas Kumar of UP team in the men’s 65kg category.
Dutt ended the bout much before the final whistle.Earlier, Haryana took the lead through Nitin, who beat Sergey Ratushny of Uttar Pradesh 3-1 in the men’s 57kg category.
Having earned two points in the first round, he added another in the next to maintain a slight lead over his opponent, who could bag a single point during the bout.
In the women’s 48kg, UP Wizards’ Kogut Oleksandra rallied from behind to record a 6-2 win over Haryana’s Nirmala Devi as scores were tied 1-1.
In the second round, the 2010 World Championship gold medallist Oleksandra used all her experience to come back strongly with just a minute left to earn five points on the trot.
The next battle was between the two Indians in the men’s 125kg with Haryana’s Hitender sealing a comfortable 4-0 win over UP team’s Joginder Kumar.
Hitender bagged two points in the first round to go into the break with a slight lead and then won two more in the next round to hand Haryana back the advantage.
Thereafter, it depended on Geetika Jakhar to extend Haryana’s lead but Alina Stadinik Makhinia of UP Wizards proved too strong for the Indian, dominating the proceedings completely in the women’s 69kg.
Having led 5-0, Alina blanked Geetika 11-0 by technical superiorty in 5:45 minutes to score the equaliser 2-2 for UP. UP then suffered a big blow as one of their best bets, Unurbat faced an upset defeat against Azcuy 1-4.
In the women’s 53kg, Babita then caused an upset win over Tatyana 8-6 to tie the scores. Thereafter, Vikas gave a tough fight to Dutt but the London Olympic bronze medallist had the last laugh.
