Anshu Malik clinches silver, becomes first Indian woman wrestler to reach World Championship final

Anshu Malik scripted history on Thursday as she became the first Indian woman to win a silver medal in the World Wrestling Championships. Anshu Malik settled for a silver medal after losing her 57kg final to 2016 Olympic champion Helen Lousie Marouli.

Only four Indian women wrestlers have won medals at the Worlds and all of them —Geeta Phogat (2012), Babita Phogat (2012), Pooja Dhanda (2018) and Vinesh Phogat (2019) — have won bronze.

Coming into the match after becoming India's first-ever woman finalist at the World Championship, the 19-year old began in an aggressive fashion with positive intent.

She led 1-0 at the breather but the bout changed in dramatic fashion in the second. Maroulis got Anshu in her arm grip and pulled her down to complete a take-down move to take a 2-1 lead. She kept Anshu's right arm under a tight grip and kept twisting to get an 'exposure' point, making it 4-1.

Meanwhile, Divya Kakran (72kg) lost her repechage round in the morning session to Mongolia's Davaanasan Enkh Amar and expectedly, the Greco Roman wrestlers put up a disappointing show.

Sandeep (55kg), Vikas (72kg), Sajan (77kg) and Harpreet Singh (82kg) bowed out of the competition.

Only Sajan managed to win one bout while the other three lots their respective openers.