Yogeshwar Dutt and Narsingh Yadav make wrestling World Championship team

New Delhi: London Olympic bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt and Narsingh Yadav made it to the 16-member team named for the World Wrestling Championships, even as an injured Sushil Kumar missed the selection trials here on Tuesday. Dutt, who got a bye in the initial round of the men’s 65kg freestyle caegory, fought hard before prevailing over Amit Kumar Dhankhar in the final round.

In a bout that lasted six minutes, Dutt won 6-3 to make it to the Worlds at Las Vegas from September 7 to 12, which will also be the first qualification tournament for next year’s Rio Olympics. Dutt said that there was pressure on him ahead of the bout.“I was pretty confident of defeating him but in case, I was unlucky today, people would have got a chance to point fingers at me,” Dutt said after winning the bout.

In the 74kg category, Narsingh made the cut but not before surviving some anxious moments. The 25-year-old eked out a narrow 6-5 win over Praveen Rana. In the 57kg category, Amit Kumar got the better of Sandeep Tomar. Trailing 1-2, Amit turned it around in the last three seconds to seal the issue 3-2 in his favour.