Three golds on the mat: the division's sub-junior wrestlers come home with ten medals

A fortnight ago the Varanasi division picked its sub-junior wrestling squad at open trials in the city. That squad has now come back with ten medals. At the state sub-junior boys' championship held from 21 to 23 August, the division finished with three golds, one silver and six bronzes. Ritik Yadav took gold in the 45 kg freestyle; Piyush Yadav won the 60 kg Greco-Roman title and Ritesh Patel the 71 kg. Aryan took silver at 45 kg Greco-Roman. The bronzes went to Angad Yadav, Dixit Yadav, Maitrey Yadav and Adarsh Yadav in freestyle, and to Vishnu Gupta and Abhinav Yadav in Greco-Roman. Suresh Chandra Upadhyay, secretary general of the Uttar Pradesh Wrestling Federation, presided over the closing ceremony. Rajiv Singh Ranu, president of the Varanasi Wrestling Federation, and secretary Rajkumar Mishra were present as the boys collected their medals. Sub-junior is where a wrestling career is actually decided in eastern Uttar Pradesh — the age group that feeds the junior state squads and, from there, the national camps. Six of these ten medals came in Greco-Roman, the tougher and less-coached of the two styles, which says something about the akharas and school coaches quietly doing the work across the division.

Compiled by HelloBanaras from public sources: Amar Ujala