Ibrahim Moustafa ranking series: Reetika clinches bronze in women's 72 kg category, India wins second medal

Young Indian wrestler Reetika clinched a bronze medal in the women's 72 kg category in the ongoing Ibrahim Moustafa 2023 wrestling ranking series being held in Alexandria, Egpyt.

On Saturday, Reetika won India's second medal in the series. On Friday, it was Ankit Gulia who won a bronze medal in men's 72 kg.

Reetika, a gold medalist in the U23 Asian Championships and bronze medalist at Junior World Championships last year, defeated Lilly Schneider of Germany, via technical superiority by 10-0 in the bronze medal bout, as per Olympics.com.

Earlier, she had defeated Uzbekistan's Youth Olympics Games bronze medalist Svetlana Oknazarova by 13-1 in the first round and followed it with a 10-0 win over Lilly to make it to the final four.

But she was handed a loss by two-time European championships medalist and eventual gold medalist Dalma Caneva of Italy via a fall by 2-1 in the semifinal and made it to the bronze medal bout, which she won.

The other three Indian wrestlers in action on Saturday failed to win the medals.

Asian championships bronze medalist Sushma Shokeen, contesting in the women's 55 kg category pulled out of the competition due to an injury.

Simran, a Youth Olympics champion in the 43 kg, defeated Egypt's Alaa Abdelhalim Said Harhash 12-0 via technical superiority in her women's 59 kg quarterfinal but lost her semifinal match to Moldova's Anastasia Nichita by 10-0 on basis of technical superiority. Simran lost to two-time Junior European champion Yuliia Leskovets of Ukraine by fall (4-0) in her bronze medal bout.

Bhateri lost three out of her four bouts in the women's 65 kg category and finished at the bottom among five competitors in her category. She started strongly by defeating U20 World Championships bronze medalist Khadija Jlassi of Tunisia 3-1 but registered losses to Tetiana Sova Rizhko of Ukraine (8-0), USA's Emma Patricia Bruntil (5-2) and Ayatalla Magdy Mohamed Sadek Ahmed of Egypt (8-2).

The Ibrahim Moustafa 2023 wrestling ranking series will be concluding on February 26. Men's freestyle wrestlers will be in action on the final day of the competition.

( With inputs from ANI )